DAMASCUS, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Ten people were killed on Thursday in Jordanian airstrikes that targeted populated areas in the southern Syrian province of Sweida, a local Syrian source said.
Bassem Hatoum, a member of the Sweida Provincial Council, told Xinhua that the airstrikes on the towns of Malah and Arman resulted in the deaths of 10 civilians, including children and women.
Eyewitnesses told Xinhua that the airstrikes targeted houses in Malah and Arman, causing substantial material damage.
A medical source at the national hospital in Sweida said it received three people who were injured in the airstrikes and their conditions were stable.
After the airstrikes, the Sweida Provincial Council announced on its official Facebook page that it had decided to suspend a meeting in protest.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, has placed the death toll at nine people in addition to a suspected death.
It said Jordanian warplanes conducted attacks on houses and a warehouse in two areas southeast of Sweida, adding that these airstrikes resulted in casualties and significant material damage.
In Arman alone, eight people were killed in the airstrikes, including two girls and four women, it said, adding at least two houses were hit.
It added that a woman, her two daughters, and a couple lost their lives in the first house while a man and two women were killed in the second house.
Rescue efforts are currently underway as there are still individuals trapped under the rubble, and there is information suggesting the possibility of other casualties.
Additionally, the town has suffered extensive destruction. The citizens of Arman have urgently appealed to rescue teams to come to their aid, remove the debris, and recover the bodies of the victims, according to the Observatory.
Reports have also revealed that a warehouse in the town of Malah in the southeastern countryside of Sweida was targeted during the airstrikes. Both the warehouse and a nearby house sustained damage, but no casualty was reported.
This incident marks the third attack by Jordanian warplanes since the beginning of this year, said the Observatory.
The repeated violations of sovereignty have caused outrage among the Syrian people who call for justice and an end to such airstrikes.
The Observatory said dozens of people staged a protest on Thursday in the al-Karameh square in Sweida to condemn the Jordanian airstrikes.
Jordan has been actively going after drug traffickers in Sweida on the Syrian-Jordanian border region. These operations aim to crack down on drug trafficking networks operating in the region and prevent drugs from being smuggled into Jordan and Gulf states from Syria's rural areas. ■
