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Turkey-Backed Fighters Down Regime Chopper in Syria

A Syrian regime helicopter bursts in flames after it was shot by a missile in Idlib province on Tuesday. (AP)
A Syrian regime helicopter bursts in flames after it was shot by a missile in Idlib province on Tuesday. (AP)
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Turkey-Backed Fighters Down Regime Chopper in Syria

A Syrian regime helicopter bursts in flames after it was shot by a missile in Idlib province on Tuesday. (AP)
A Syrian regime helicopter bursts in flames after it was shot by a missile in Idlib province on Tuesday. (AP)

Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters shot down a regime helicopter west of Aleppo in Syria's northwestern Idlib region, where violence and displacement has spiked in recent weeks, Turkish and Syrian state media said on Friday.

An opposition military source and eyewitnesses told Reuters Russian jets had been targeting areas in the countryside west of Aleppo earlier on Friday, but they evacuated back to the city after the helicopter was downed.

The Turkey-backed National Front for Liberation claimed responsibility, saying it was avenging the killing of civilians. Videos posted online show a helicopter spiraling downward from the sky, with flames trailing behind as onlookers cheer.

The helicopter was struck as it flew over the front lines after leaving Aleppo, which is controlled by the regime, Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground, said the helicopter was downed Friday in the village of Qibtan al-Jebel, north of Aleppo city. It said two crew members were killed and their bodies were found near the site of the crash.

The Observatory said the helicopter was shot down by Turkish military forces stationed in the opposition-held region.

Ankara acknowledged the incident in a statement but did not claim responsibility. Opposition factions downed another regime helicopter on Tuesday near the town of Nairab, to the south.

A military official told Syrian state media that Friday’s helicopter was hit by a “hostile rocket” in the western countryside of Aleppo province. The unnamed official said the helicopter crashed and its crew was killed.

Syria's military has used helicopters to drop rudimentary barrel bombs on opposition areas throughout its campaign to reclaim territory. Rights groups have documented and criticized their use in the nine-year war.

Turkey's military has sent additional arms and troops to Idlib, on its southern border, to confront a push by Russia-backed Syrian regime forces to retake the country's last major opposition stronghold after nearly nine years of war.

The Syrian Observatory war monitor said on Friday that Turkey had deployed around 6,500 soldiers to reinforce existing units in northwest Syria, as well as some 1,900 military vehicles since early February.

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Arab World

UN Races to Feed One Million Gazans after Truce

People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Races to Feed One Million Gazans after Truce

People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)

The UN's World Food Program said Sunday it was moving full throttle to get food to as many Gazans as possible after border crossings reopened as part of a long-awaited ceasefire deal.

"We're trying to reach a million people within the shortest possible time," the WFP's Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told AFP, as the Rome-based UN agency's trucks began rolling into the strip.

"We're moving in with wheat flour, ready to eat meals, and we will be working all fronts trying to restock the bakeries," Skau said, adding the agency would attempt to provide nutritional supplements to the most malnourished.

An initial 42-day truce between Israel and Hamas is meant to enable a surge of sorely needed humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory after 15 months of war.

"The agreement is for 600 trucks a day... All the crossings will be open," Skau said.

The first WFP trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south and through the Zikim crossing in the north, the agency said in a statement, as it began trying to pull "the war-ravaged territory back from starvation".

"We have 150 trucks lined up for every day for the next at least 20 days," Skau said, adding that the WFP was "hopeful that the border crossings will be open and efficient".

There needs to be "an environment inside (Gaza) that is secure enough for our teams to move around," so that food "does not just get over the border but also gets into the hands of the people".

"It seems so far that things have been working relatively well.... We need to now sustain that over several days over weeks," he said.

Before the ceasefire came into effect, WFP was operating just five out of the 20 bakeries it partners with due to dwindling supplies of fuel and flour, as well as insecurity in northern Gaza.

"We're hoping that we will be up and running on all those bakeries as soon as possible," Skau said, stressing that it was "one of our top priorities" to get bread to "tens of thousands of people each day".

"It also has a psychological effect to be able to put warm bread into the hands of the people".

WFP also wants to "get the private sector and commercial goods in there as soon as possible," he said.

That would mean the UN agency could replace ready meals with vouchers and cash for people to buy their own food "to bring back some dignity" and allow them "frankly to start rebuilding their lives".

WFP said in a statement that it has enough food pre-positioned along the borders -- and on its way to Gaza -- to feed over a million people for three months.

Vast areas of Gaza have been devastated by Israel's retaliatory assault on the territory after the October 7 Hamas attack last year sparked the war.

The attack, the deadliest in Israel's history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 46,913 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.