[11] Syrian Defense Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas was in attendance at the graduation ceremony but left before the attack.
[14] Retaliation was set in motion on the same day, in which the Syrian military carried out rocket and artillery strikes on the opposition-controlled zone of Idlib Governorate, killing at least 24 civilians and injuring 37 others.
[19] The areas targeted were controlled by different factions including Ansar al-Tawhid, Hurras al-Din, Tahrir al-Sham and Turkistan Islamic Party.
Argentina,[23] Algeria,[24] Armenia,[25] Belarus,[26] Brazil,[27] Egypt,[28] India, Iran,[29] Iraq,[30] Jordan,[31] Lebanon,[32] North Korea,[33] Oman,[34] Palestine,[35] Romania,[36] Russia,[37] Sudan,[38] the United Arab Emirates[39] and Venezuela[40] expressed their condolences to the Syrian government, according to the state news agency SANA.
[41] United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was "deeply concerned" about developments in Syria, according to his spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.