Warplanes believed to be Russian bombed targets in the southern Syrian province of Deraa for the first time Wednesday night, a rebel group operating in the area and an activist group said Thursday. If confirmed, the airstrikes on the Tal al-Hara area would be the furthest south Russian jets have struck in almost a month of airstrikes in support of President Bashar Assad. Tal al-Hara is less than 20 km from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Bashar al-Zoubi, head of the political office of Yarmouk Army, which operates in the Deraa area, said: "They are most probably Russian." The Syrian air force did not mount nighttime raids, he added. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said the jets were believed to be Russian. Russia's air campaign has given new momentum to Syria's ground forces, who have launched offensives in several provinces with air cover from Moscow. But the offensives have had mixed results. In the central province of Hama, the regime has taken several villages but failed to advance much toward a key town on a highway in the region. And in Aleppo, it has captured at least six villages from rebel forces, along with several hilltops. But an ISIS advance meanwhile has severed the only route in and out of the government-held west of Aleppo city. Elsewhere in Syria, the Observatory said Syrian government airstrikes on a market and a hospital killed at least eight civilians outside Damascus. "Warplanes carried out a series of strikes on areas in the city of Douma in Eastern Ghouta, killing at least eight civilians, including a child," Observatory chief Rami Abdel-Rahman said. Dozens more were wounded, several seriously, and the toll is likely to rise. The Observatory said one of the raids hit a field hospital, but could not say how many were killed there. The Local Coordination Committees, an activist group documenting the war, said a street market was also targeted. Russia Wednesday said it opposes a draft U.N. resolution on Syria's use of barrel bombs which is being promoted by France, Britain and Spain because it could jeopardize ongoing international talks in Vienna on how to restore peace to the conflict-wracked country. Human rights groups say barrel bombings by the regime are the No. 1 killer in almost five-year war, claiming more civilian lives than ISIS attacks. Russia's intervention in Syria follows that of a U.S.-led coalition that has been carrying out strikes against ISIS in the country since September 2014. According to the Observatory, the U.S.-led strikes have killed 3,649 people since they began, including 226 civilians. Meanwhile, a total of 595 people have been killed in Russian strikes since Sept. 30, two-thirds of them fighters with opposition forces including ISIS, the Observatory also reported. The other third, some 185 people, were civilians, including 48 children, it added. Russia has carried out strikes throughout Syria, with only four of the country's 14 provinces untouched by the aerial campaign since it began, according to the group. Several medical groups have also accused Russia of strikes that have hit field clinics and hospitals in Syria. On Thursday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said a "significant increase" of airstrikes on Syrian hospitals recently has killed at least 35 patients and medical staff and wounded 72. The group reported that 12 hospitals had been hit in Idlib, Aleppo and Hama provinces, including six supported by MSF. It did not, however, identify who was behind them. In other developments, a Syrian rebel group which is part of a new U.S.-backed alliance that also includes the Kurdish YPG militia announced plans for an imminent offensive against ISIS militants in Raqqa province, the militant group's stronghold in Syria. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said earlier this week the U.S.-led coalition would support local forces as they put pressure on ISIS in Raqqa and in neighboring Iraq. The Raqqa Revolutionaries Front, which made the announcement in an online video statement, is one of several rebel groups that recently formed the alliance. The group said earlier this month U.S. weapons were on their way. "We will soon announce zero hour for the beginning of the battle of liberation from oppression and persecution," leader Abu Issa said in the video, which was posted on YouTube by an activist group called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently. "It will be an historic battle, for Raqqa first and Syria second," Abu Issa said, appealing to the local population. "Today we declare Raqqa province in its entirety a military zone. For this reason its people must not go near areas where there are Daesh elements" for their own safety, he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. He did not mention U.S. military aid, nor the name of the wider alliance formed earlier this month, the Democratic Forces of Syria. The alliance includes the Kurdish YPG militia and a number of Syrian Arab rebel groups such as the Raqqa Revolutionaries Front, which consists mainly of Arab tribal insurgents drawn from the area. The Arab groups in the new alliance are operating under the name "The Syrian Arab Coalition."
