13 killed in hospital attack in opposition-held Syria town
Beirut: Missiles have hit a hospital in a northern Syrian town controlled by Turkey-backed fighters, killing at least 13 people, including two medical staff, and putting the facility out of service, activists and an aid group said.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the shelling, which came from areas where government troops and Kurdish-led fighters are deployed.
The governor of Turkey's Hatay's province, across the border from Afrin, also said the attack on Saturday killed 13 civilians and injured 27, adding that it involved rocket and artillery shelling of the hospital.
The governor's office blamed the attack on Syrian Kurdish groups.
A war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, put the death toll at 18. The discrepancy could not be immediately reconciled.
The Syrian American Medical Society, or SAMS, an aid group that assists health centers in opposition areas, said al-Shifaa Hospital in the town of Afrin was targeted by two missiles. The attack destroyed the polyclinic department, the emergency and the delivery rooms, the group said.
Two of the 13 people killed were hospital staff and two were ambulance drivers, said SAMS, which supports the hospital. Eleven of its staff were injured. The hospital has been put out of service and patients were evacuated, the group said.
SAMS called for an investigation into the attack on the hospital, one of the largest facilities in northern Syria that offered thousands of medical services each month, including surgeries and maternity wards. The coordinates for the hospital, which is financed by USAID as well as UN funds, were shared as part of the UN-led deconfliction mechanism, the group said.
Turkey and allied Syrian fighters took control of Afrin in 2018 in a military operation that expelled local Kurdish fighters and displaced thousands of Kurdish residents. Ankara considers the Kurdish fighters who were in control of Afrin terrorists. Since then, there has been a series of attacks on Turkish targets in the area.
The governor's office of Turkey's Hatay province blamed the attack on the Kurdish group.
The head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abadi, denied his forces were behind the attack. In a tweet, he said, the U.S-backed SDF condemned the attack that targeted innocent lives, calling it a violation of international law. (AP)
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Ranchi: Temple guard bludgeoned to death during robbery attempt, 3 held
Ranchi (PTI): A 60-year-old security guard of a temple in Ranchi was bludgeoned to death with a stone during a robbery attempt, police said on Saturday.
The incident happened late on Thursday at the Jagannath Temple in the Dhurwa Smart City area, they said.
"Three persons were arrested on Friday for killing the security guard. They confessed to the crime and told police that the victim had identified them. Therefore, in fear of being caught, they killed him by attacking him with a stone on his head," SSP Rakesh Ranjan said.
"Thereafter, they took money from the donation box and fled the scene. Two of them have criminal antecedents," he added.
Ranjan said the investigators recovered Rs 3 lakh in cash that had been robbed, the stone with blood-stained marks, and the iron rod used to break open the lock of the donation box kept there.
An FIR in this regard was lodged at the Dhurwa police station, he said, adding that the accused were sent to judicial custody by a court.
