BEIRUT: At least seven civilians, including five children, were killed Tuesday by air strikes in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, the last outside government control, a monitor said.
Government and allied forces backed by Russian warplanes have been battling jihadist fighters and rebels for over a week in an area straddling the border between Idlib and Hama provinces.
The air strikes targeted the town of Khan Subul in the center of Idlib province, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“There were at least seven dead, five children and two women,” the Observatory said.
“We do not know if these were air strikes by the Syrian regime or the Russians,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The government push on the edge of Idlib province follows two months of sporadic fighting that the United Nations says has displaced more than 60,000 people.
“Displacement sites are reportedly overwhelmed. Some services are 400 percent above their planned capacity to serve,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
An AFP correspondent said there were fresh clashes Tuesday.
A column of white smoke could be seen rising into the sky after a regime air strike in the town of Al-Tamana and rebels were firing artillery at government positions.
Idlib province — currently dominated by a former Al-Qaeda affiliate — was one of four “de-escalation zones” agreed to help halt fighting around the country by regime backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey.
The war in Syria has killed more than 340,000 people and displaced millions from their homes since it began in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
7 civilians killed in air strikes in Syria’s Idlib
7 civilians killed in air strikes in Syria’s Idlib
Syria says detained senior Daesh jihadist in Damascus
- The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers
DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities have arrested a senior Daesh group official in the Damascus region in a joint operation with a US-led international coalition, a security official said on Wednesday.
Taha Al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tabiya, an Daesh leader in Damascus, was detained with several of his men, General Ahmad Al-Dalati was reported as saying by state news agency SANA.
The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers and a US civilian that Washington said was carried out by a lone Daesh gunman in central Syria’s Palmyra.
“Our specialized units, in cooperation with the General Intelligence Directorate and and International Coalition forces, carried out a precise security operation targeting” an Daesh hideout, Dalati said.
On December 20, a Syria monitor said that five Daesh members were killed in US strikes in retaliation for the December 13 attack.
It was the first such incident since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and Syrian authorities said the perpetrator was a security forces member who was due to be fired for his “extremist Islamist ideas.”
