2014 deadliest year in Syria war as 76,000 killed

The latest death toll by the Syrian Observatory for HUman Rights comes as President Bashar Al Assad makes a rare public appearance on the Syrian front line to bolster soldiers and pro-government fighters.

epa04544118 A handout photo made available by Syria's Arab News Agency (SANA) of Syrian President Bashar Assad inspecting at midnight 31 December 2014 his soldiers, officers and Popular Defense Forces on the frontlines in Joubar neighborhood in the countryside of Damascus, Syria. According to media reports, Assad lauded his soldiers’ performance in “protecting safe people and their properties in Damascus city and its surrounding.” EPA/SANA HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALESShow less

BEIRUT // More than 76,000 people were killed in Syria’s brutal conflict in 2014, making it the bloodiest year in the country’s civil war, a monitor said on Thursday.

The conflict that began in March 2011 shows no sign of abating, with president Bashar Al Assad making a rare public appearance on a front line overnight to bolster soldiers and pro-government fighters.

The war has become a multi-front conflict and contributed to the rise of Islamist militant groups such as ISIL.

ISIL controls a swathe of territory in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq, where government figures showed at least 15,000 people were killed in 2014.

In Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, recorded 76,021 deaths last year.

The Britain-based group documented the deaths of nearly 18,000 civilians throughout 2014, among them 3,501 children.

The majority of the deaths were combatants, including nearly 17,000 Islamists, 15,747 rebel forces and 22,627 regime troops and militiamen.

Overnight, Mr Al Assad visited troops and pro-regime forces in the east Damascus district of Jobar in a rare public appearance.

The president’s official Facebook and Twitter accounts carried photographs of him in civilian clothes talking with two soldiers by a tank and shaking hands with a third.

“If there is still a bit of joy in Syria, it is thanks to the victories you are winning against terrorism,” Mr Al Assad was quoted as telling them.

Syria’s conflict has so far killed more than 200,000 people, displaced nearly half the country’s population and spilled over into its neighbours.

ISIL, which emerged from Al Qaeda’s one-time Iraqi affiliate, now controls a self-proclaimed Islamic “caliphate” in parts of Iraq and Syria.

Its expansion, and bloody battles with Iraqi and Kurdish forces, contributed to making 2014 Iraq’s bloodiest year since 2007.

Figures compiled by the health, interior and defence ministries put the death toll at 15,538, compared with 17,956 killed in 2007, during the height of Sunni-Shiite sectarian killings.

The fight against ISIL has drawn the United States back to Iraq, where it is training Iraqi forces and leading an international coalition to carry out airstrikes against the group.

On Thursday, the Pentagon said coalition forces had carried out 17 strikes overnight in Syria, and 12 raids in Iraq.

Elsewhere, a video purporting to show two Italian aid workers kidnapped in northern Syria in August was posted online.

The footage showed two women dressed in black robes and headscarves identifying themselves as Vanessa Marzullo and Greta Ramelli.

The two, both in their 20s, were abducted by an unknown group in Aleppo province last year.

In the video, one of the women holds a piece of paper identifying the date as December 17, a Wednesday, and the other urges the Italian government to win their release.

The video title on YouTube identifies them as hostages of Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front, but the footage included none of the group’s hallmarks and was not distributed on any of its official accounts.

* Agence France-Presse