Assad's forces blamed as strikes kill 10 in Damascus and jeopardise peace talks

Air strikes damaged a school and a hospital in a suburb of Damascus yesterday, killing at least 10 people in one of the bloodiest attacks since the start of a partial ceasefire more than a month ago.

Opposition activists blamed the Syrian air force for the attacks in Deir al-Asafir, in the eastern Ghouta district of the Syrian capital, and said itthe strikes threatened to derail fragile truce and peace negotiations due to resume in Geneva in two weeks’ time. The Syrian National Coalition, an opposition group, described the attack as a “massacre”.

The Syrian government says that the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, which along with Isis is excluded from the ceasefire agreement, operates in the districts on the eastern fringe of the city.

However, the British-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the area was also home to around 2,700 families. The group put the death toll at 10, including four children and a rescue worker, but said that figure was expected to rise due to the high number of severe injuries. Others said the number of dead was approaching 30.

The attack came as President Bashar al-Assad said that he would be willing to hold an early presidential election if it was demanded by the Syrian people.

In an interview with the Russian news agency RIA, the Syrian leader said: “If there is such a will, this is not a problem for me.”

In the last presidential election, held in 2014 amid heavy fighting across the country, Mr Assad won 88.7 per cent of the vote in a result dismissed by the opposition as a farce.

Yesterday the Kremlin was yesterday forced to deny a report in the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat that Moscow and Washington had struck a deal to remove Mr Assad from power.

The story claimed that John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, had told several Arab countries that an agreement had been reached to allow Mr Assad to depart for a “third country” at an unspecified point in the future. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said that the report “does not correspond to reality”.

Drone attack Isis leader killed

An envoy to the Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is believed to have been killed in a drone strike, according to the monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Abu al-Haijaa al-Tunisia was said to be travelling from Iraq to oversee the group’s military operations in rural north-east of Aleppo province when his vehicle was targeted, the British-based group said.

Yesterday also saw the Russian Defence Ministry say Russian demining experts had arrived in Syria to start clearing mines in the ancient town of Palmyra, which was recaptured from Isis on Sunday by Syrian troops under the cover of Russian air strikes.

The Kremlin had pledged to help the Syrian government clear the archaeological site of mines. The Russian ministry said in a statement that the first demining group landed early yesterday at its base in Syria.

It was not immediately clear when the Russians would get to Palmyra. The demining is expected to take several months.