Syrian troops, Kurdish forces make gains in country’s north

Turkish Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz said Ankara was not considering sending troops to Syria, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. “If it was deliberate, intentional targeting of those facilities, it could amount to a war crime”.

The UN statement indicated the range of civilian targets was far broader, and the death toll much higher, than originally reported from the region. “We entered Syria and started aviation operations there because it was impossible to put up with the inaction of the US-led coalition any longer”, he said.

If they wanted to bomb them where can we find them? “Who will punish it?” he asked. With the help of Russian air strikes it also advanced from the government-held coastal city of Latakia, continuing a push into rebel territory and fighting to take the key town of Kansaba.

When pressed, he told journalists the Syrian government had made a string of announcement on who could have been behind the bombing.

In the same raid, a school where refugees were sheltering was also hit.

Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday that “there has to be a general recognition by all participants that there is no military solution”. Neither nation has acknowledged responsibility for the attacks. It said seven people were killed and eight others were “missing, presumed dead”.

The U.N. envoy arrived in the Syrian capital Monday for discussions on aid deliveries and resuming peace talks in Geneva. “All parties to the conflict must cease such horrific attacks, stop destroying medical facilities and allow medical workers to carry out their life-saving work without fear of being killed or injured in the line of duty”, said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“We have been moving scores of screaming children from the hospital”, said medic Juma Rahal, following the missile strikes.

Rescuers wearing hard hats searched through rubble for survivors in northern Syria Monday after airstrikes hit two hospitals and a school building.

“Apart from compelling considerations of diplomacy and obligations under worldwide humanitarian law, let us remember that these victims are children”.

Turkey on Tuesday denounced Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria as “barbaric”, saying the assault had killed civilians including children and the elderly.

Stein said that already “the events on the ground are moving too fast” for Turkey to be moving ground troops into Syria.

Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group, while the United States backs it in the fight against ISIS. The Kurdish YPG militia – which Turkey regards as a hostile insurgent force – has exploited the situation, seizing ground from Syrian rebels to extend its presence along the border.

Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic told reporters such statements were received “with astonishment” “because they put US “ally Turkey and a terrorist organization in the same equation”.

Five patients, one caretaker and one guard have reportedly been killed. The opposition group, which tracks both sides of the conflict through sources on the ground, said dozens were wounded in the attack.

South of Azaz, the Kurdish-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, of which the YPG is member, took around 70% of the town of Tal Rifaat, according to the Syrian Observatory, which monitors the war.

Turkey described its cross-border shelling as a retaliatory measure.

Lavrov, as he has done before, shrugged off criticism about Russian military actions in Syria as lies and propaganda.

The facilities in Azaz and Idlib were amongst at least five hospitals and two schools that were hit by air strikes on Monday, prompting Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, to become the first major Western leader to call for a no-fly zone to be imposed.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian warplanes targeted the hospital in Idlib province, destroying it and killing nine people. At least three children and a pregnant woman were killed, local activists said. Another maternal and paediatric care hospital, not supported by MSF, was also bombed in Azaz city, and has temporarily moved its paediatric centre into an MSF clinic.

One of the hospitals in Maarat al-Numan was supported by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).