The Syrian Civil War is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict in Syria fought primarily between the government of President Bashar al-Assad, along with its allies, and various forces opposing the government.
On 6 January 2018, two Russian military bases were attacked by a swarm of DIY drones.The perpetrator is unknown, but Russia blames the attack on Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. This incident concerned the US, because the Russians claimed to have neutralized the drones "electronically", which is a capability the US doesn't have.
In January—February 2018, the Syrian Army and its allies continued to advance against the forces of Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other rebels in the Hama Governorate . Meanwhile, on 20 January, the Turkish military began a cross-border operation in the Kurdish -majority Afrin Canton and the Tel Rifaat Area of Shahba Canton in Northern Syria, against the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD), its armed wing People's Protection Units (YPG), [403] and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions.
On 10 February 2018, the Syrian Air Defense
shot down an Israeli F-16 fighter jet in response to a cross border raid conducted by Israel on Iranian targets near Damascus through Lebanese airspace.The pilots survived the crash, but have been transported for treatment.
On 21 February 2018, the government began an
operation to capture rebel-held Ghouta east of Damascus; the operation started with intensive air campaign
Advanced weaponry and tactics
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Sarin , mustard agent and chlorine gas have been used during the conflict. Numerous casualties led to an international reaction, especially the 2013 Ghouta attacks . A UN fact-finding mission was requested to investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks. In four cases the UN inspectors confirmed use of sarin gas.In August 2016, a confidential report by the United Nations and the OPCW explicitly blamed the Syrian military of Bashar al-Assad for dropping chemical weapons (chlorine bombs) on the towns of Talmenes in April 2014 and Sarmin in March 2015 and ISIS for using sulfur mustard on the town of Marea in August 2015.
CLUSTER BOMBS
Many nations including but not limited to Syria, the United States , Russia, China , Israel and India are not parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and do not recognize the ban on the use of cluster bombs . The Syrian Army is alleged to have begun using cluster bombs in September 2012. Steve Goose, director of the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch said "Syria is expanding its relentless use of cluster munitions, a banned weapon, and civilians are paying the price with their lives and limbs", "The initial toll is only the beginning because cluster munitions often leave unexploded bomblets that kill and maim long afterward."
Researchers have strong evidence that bombs in Syria were targeting civilians, including women and children.
In the past seven years, barrel bombs have killed civilians almost exclusively, an international team of scientists report Wednesday. Civilians comprised 97 percent of the deaths from these bombs.
"That is a very big deal," says Debarati Guha-Sapir, an epidemiologist at the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Brussels, who led the study. "Governments are either missing combatants on purpose, or they have very inept war strategies.
The study also finds a dramatic rise in the number of children killed as the war has progressed.
Children represented a small proportion of deaths, about 9 percent, in the first two years of the war. But since 2013, that proportion has more than doubled. Now nearly 1 in 4 civilian deaths are children, Guha-Sapir and her team report in the journal Lancet Global Health.
"This increase is directly associated with the use of aerial bombings," Guha-Sapir says. "We conclude that the use of bombs ends up targeting children and women more than targeting combatants."
In the late 2000s, Guha-Sapir was instrumental in documenting war crimes and genocide in Darfur, Sudan and testified about her findings at the Hague.
"I've analyzed data from Iraq, Darfur, the Congo — places with very problematic wars," she says. "Deaths of children were usually associated with lack of access to medical care, vaccination, postnatal care because of the war. By and large, children did not die directly because of war weapons."
"And the VDC only includes deaths when they can corroborate the information," Mowafi says. "Clearly more people have died than are reported here, but the study represents one of the most complete accounts of war deaths in the Syria to date."
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