This is Syria, not Vietnam

A large number of children injured by incendiary bombs were taken to the Syrian-American Medical Society hospital in Hama, president of the aid group Dr. Zaher Sahloul said.

One of the shocking photographs shows a young boy sat upright on a hospital bed with horrific burns. His hair has been singed and his clothes have been cut away from his body.

Dr Sahloul said on Twitter: 'This is not a victim of American Napalm in Vietnam but a Syrian child victim of Assad's Napalm in Hama.'

Aid workers have described the weapons used in the airstrikes as ‘napalm bombs’. 

This has not been independently verified but the Syrian government is proven to use chemical weapons and has not signed up to an international convention that prevents the use of incendiary devices on civilian populations.

Syrian warplanes were also accused of dropping napalm bombs on the rebel-held neighborhood of al-Waer in the city of Homs this weekend.

After the attack, video emerged showing a severely burned Syrian girl shaking and crying while locals bandaged her wounds and smeared terracotta-coloured mud on her head.

'After the bombing by war planes stopped, they began firing napalm,' a doctor in the district told Al-Jazeera. 'Some of the patients were burned.'

A severe shortage of medical supplies means mud is being used as a cooling agent on the excruciating burns.

'They use mud because there is no medication and with napalm you can't use water,' a Homs activist told The Telegraph. 'You make the burn even worse if you use water so they looked around and they used the mud.'

The local doctor said they are having to use polyester bandages for burns patients 'which worsen the injuries' because they have no other options.

Incendiary bombs are described by witnesses as 'fireballs' because they ignite while falling and light up the sky.

The bomb's flammable thermite content burns at 2,200C and ignites fires that are hard to put out. It is the hottest burning man-made substance and can burn human flesh down to the bone.

The airstrikes on Thursday came amid a lightning advance by insurgents on government-controlled areas of the central province.

The rebel offensive is led by an ultraconservative Islamic group, Jund al-Aqsa, and several factions from the western-backed Free Syrian Army.

In the past three days, the insurgents have pushed their way from northern Hama, where they are usually based, down south toward government-held areas.

Local activist Ahmed al-Ahmed said the rebels were only eight kilometers (five miles) away from the provincial capital, Hama.

The insurgents have taken over a government military base and are in control of several towns along the highway linking it to the capital, Damascus, following a "surprising" government retreat, he said.

The advances in Hama are significant because if rebels control the city and the highway they can sever government supply lines and deprive President Bashar Assad of a traditional stronghold.

Clashes are now concentrated around a hill outside the provincial capital, also called Hama, al-Ahmed said.

Al-Ahmed, who is currently in Turkey, said government forces in Hama province may have been weakened because many troops were transferred to Aleppo city, where they are bogged down in vicious fighting with advancing rebels.

The Hama-based Syrian Press Center, an activist group operated by al-Ahmed, said at least ten people were killed when warplanes struck a crowd of people displaced from Suran, a town north of Hama city that was seized by opposition fighters. Another 15 people were killed further to the west, the center said.

Syria's state news agency, SANA, says warplanes killed 10 "terrorists" in northern Hama.

(www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3769197/This-Syria-not-Vietnam-Agonising-photos-Syrian-children-burned-napalm-bombs-air-strike-killed-25-civilians.html#ixzz4J51ZHt8U)