BEIRUT, October 6. /TASS/. Syria's Air Defense Troops have shot down another drone spotted in the skies over Homs, the government newspaper Al Watan reported.
The newspaper did not give further details. The Al Mayadeen TV channel said that the drone was circling over a military hospital. On Thursday, there was a terrorist attack on a military college in Homs that killed 89 people and injured 277, according to the latest figures from the Syrian Health Ministry.
The attack, in which drones were used, took place on October 5 on the college’s training grounds at the conclusion of a festive ceremony for commissioning the school's cadets as officers. An eyewitness told TASS by telephone that "explosions were heard near the stands where the families of military personnel, their parents, brothers, sisters, wives and children were standing." The country has declared three days of mourning for the dead, flags have been lowered in the country, all sports, cultural and entertainment events have been canceled.
The Syrian army's artillery launched massive rocket and mortar attacks on the bases of the terrorist band, from which they had launched the drones toward Homs. According to Al Mayadeen TV, the new shipment of drones used in the attack was delivered three months ago from France and was intended for mercenaries of the Turkistan Islamic Party. This extremist organization is allied with the terrorist group Al-Nusra Front, also known as Front for the Conquest of the Levant (banned in Russia) and is composed of Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group native to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China. Its fighters are based in the mountainous areas of Latakia and Idlib in Syria, which border on Turkey. Other recipients of the drones were Islamists from Kataib al-Mahajireen, also fighting on the side of Al-Nusra Front.