A rocket attack on a military bus has killed 10 soldiers and wounded nine more in northwest Syria, the country’s state news agency SANA reported.​

Damascus, May 14 (RHC)-- A rocket attack on a military bus has killed 10 soldiers and wounded nine more in northwest Syria, the country’s state news agency SANA reported.

The death toll is the heaviest reported in pro-government ranks from a rebel attack since a truce agreement brokered by Russia and Turkey in March 2020. The truce has largely held despite sporadic attacks by both sides, including continued Russian air raids.

The bus was attacked in the west of Aleppo province on Friday morning, the SANA news agency said.  Attackers hit the bus with an anti-tank missile, the agency reported.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which was near the frontier with rebel-held territory close to the Turkish border.

Syrian rebel group Ahrar al-Sham posted a video on its Telegram channel on Friday showing a rocket hitting a bus, with a caption declaring that the footage showed the moment a military bus belonging to pro-Assad militias was destroyed west of Aleppo. The content of the video could not be independently verified.

The head of Lebanon’s heavily armed Shia movement Hezbollah, which has intervened in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, offered his condolences for the dead in a televised address later on Friday.

A pro-Damascus military source told Reuters that those killed on the bus were pro-government Shia fighters from the towns of Nubl and Zahraa.