Drone attack on Syrian military academy kills at least 100

A weaponised drone attack on a military academy in Syria has killed at least 100 people in one of the bloodiest-ever bombings on an army installation in the country.

Civilians - including children - and military personnel were killed in strikes on an academy in the central province of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group, said.

Drones carrying explosives targeted a graduation ceremonty attended by cadet’s families. Initial reports said that 240 were wounded. Syria’s defence ministry said the bombings had been carried out by “terrorist groups” backed by known “international forces”.

Footage shared with The Independent through the messaging app WhatsApp showed people, both men and women, in fatigues and some in civilian clothes - lying in pools of blood in a large courtyard.

In one particularly disturbing clip, a man tries to put out flames that have engulfed the half-severed remains of woman who is still alive and crying for help by what looks like a bombed out stage.

Geir O. Pederson, the United Nations special envoy for Syria said he was concerned about reports of escalating pro-government shelling and rocket fire into Idib in the aftermath of the horrific attack in Homs.

He said it came amid reports of Turkish strikes in Kurdish-held north east Syria, after an attack on Turkish government facilities in Ankara was claimed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.

He said: “I deeply deplore the loss of life on all sides. I urgently appeal to all sides to exercise the utmost restraint. Today’s horrific scenes are a reminder of the need to immediately de-escalate violence, towards a nationwide ceasefire.”

Syria’s defense and foreign ministries vowed in written statements to respond "with full force" to the attack with heavy bombing attacks on the opposition-held zone of Idlib.

Syria’s defence minister attended the graduation ceremony but left minutes before the attack, according to a Syrian security source and a security source in the regional alliance backing the Damascus government against opposition groups.

"After the ceremony, people went down to the courtyard and the explosives hit.

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“We don’t know where it came from, and corpses littered the ground," said a Syrian man who had helped set up decorations at the academy for the occasion.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that more than 100 people were killed and 125 injured. The source in the alliance backing Syria’s government said the toll was around 100.

Syria’s conflict began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011 but spiralled into an all-out war that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.

The Syrian army has been gutted by the fighting, and relied heavily on military support from Russia and Iran as well as Tehran-backed fighters from Lebanon, Iraq and other countries.

Assad regained most of the country, but a swathe in the north bordering Turkey is still held by armed opposition groups, including hardline jihadist fighters.