BEIRUT: Air strikes pounded Syria's rebel-held Idlib province on Wednesday, killing at least nine people, including children, a war monitoring group said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said planes, believed to be Russian, struck the northwestern city of Idlib and the town of Maarat Misrin in the countryside. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian activists say Russian and Syrian aircraft have stepped up their assaults on the rebel-held province of Idlib, a day after air raids killed more than 60 people.

The activist-run Local Coordination Committees is reporting airstrikes on the towns of Binnish, Maarat Nasaan, and Saraqib, as well as the provincial capital, Idlib.

The network says the Monday morning airstrikes killed three children. It blamed the attacks on Russian aircraft.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported strikes on Idlib city. It says 288 civilians have been killed in the province since Oct. 20, when Syrian government and Russian aircraft intensified airstrikes.

The Syrian Civil Defense first responder group said 65 civilians were killed in Sunday airstrikes across the province, including attacks on two rural marketplaces that killed dozens. </s> AMMAN, Feb 7 (Reuters) - At least 30 people died in air strikes on the rebel-held Syrian city of Idlib on Tuesday, in some of the heaviest raids there in months, witnesses and rescue workers said.

Around eight attacks by what witnesses believed to be Russian jets wounded scores of people and leveled several multi-storey buildings in residential areas of the northwestern city, they added.

Russia's Defence Ministry later said media reports that its planes had bombed Idlib were not true, Interfax news agency reported.

Two rescue workers said the death toll was at least 30. The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 26 people were killed and casualties were expected to rise as rescue workers searched for bodies under the rubble.

Video footage by activists on social media showed civilians, including young children, being treated in a main city hospital where the injured had been rushed for treatment.

"We are still pulling bodies from the rubble," said Issam al Idlibi, a volunteer civil defence worker.

The extent of the damage and the debris bore the hallmarks of a Russian attack, two witnesses said.

Russian planes have targeted a number of towns and villages in the area since entering the Syrian conflict in September 2015 to back ally President Bashar al-Assad.

But activists and residents also said there had been a reduction of Russian strikes in Idlib province since a Turkish-Russian brokered cessation of hostilities late December.

Planes from the U.S.-led coalition have also launched a number of attacks in the rural province, a major stronghold of jihadists, many of them formerly affiliated to al Qaeda.

Idlib's population has been swollen by thousands of Syrian fighters and their families evacuated from villages and towns around Damascus and Aleppo city, which was retaken by the government in recent months.

Separately, at least four people were killed in air strikes by unknown jets in the town of Arbin in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, northeast of the capital. The Syrian army and pro-government militias have been seeking in recent days to gain new ground there. </s> The dead include at least eight children, White Helmets Syria Civil Defence says.

This picture taken on March 14, 2019, shows destructions following an air strike in the city of Idlib, northwestern Syria. (AFP)

Syrian regime shelling and Russian air strikes killed at least 15 civilians on Wednesday in Idlib province, in the first such raids since a September truce deal, a monitor said.

At least eight of the casualties were children, White Helmet Syria Civil Defence added.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said around 60 people were also wounded in the air strikes that struck several areas in the northwestern province.

A harrowing search and rescue operation carried out by the #WhiteHelmets in #Idlib City rescued a woman alive. The city was attacked with four air raids resulting in 15 people killed, including 8 children and two women, and 49 people were injured. #Syria pic.twitter.com/dV0jgKcHY5 — The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) March 14, 2019

"Over the past 24 hours Russian aircraft have carried out dozens of raids targeting several regions in Idlib province, including the city of Idlib and the town of Saraqeb," SOHR head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

"These are the first Russian air strikes against the province" since an accord struck by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in September last year.

TRT World's Yasin Eken reports.

In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a demilitarised zone after a meeting between Erdogan and Putin, in Sochi, Russia.

Ankara and Moscow signed a memorandum of understanding calling for the stabilisation of the situation in Idlib's de-escalation zone, in which acts of aggression are prohibited.

Idlib has been in the hands of rebels for years, even as Assad's regime has taken back other rebel enclaves.

The province is now home to some three million people, many of them displaced from other areas held by rebels or the opposition.

Source: AFP </s> An air raid on the village of Kafr Batikh in Syria's northwestern opposition-held Idlib province killed 20 people on Wednesday including 16 children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

Some 15 of those killed in the strike, in the eastern part of Idlib province, were from one family said the Britain-based war monitor.

The head of the Idlib branch of the rescue team White Helmets, Mustapha al-Haj-Youssef, told dpa that "children were at the school when the first strike took place, they got scared and ran to hide in a nearby cave.

"The second strike hit the cave directly, killing all the children inside, as well as a man and a woman," he added.

Al-Haj-Youssef said the second strike was "probably by a Russian plane."

The Observatory could not identify the identity of the raiding plane. </s> By AFP

LEBANON: At least 14 children were among 21 people killed in an air strike in Syria's northwestern Idlib province at dawn on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

The monitor said the strikes were believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes on the provincial capital Idlib city, which is controlled by jihadists and their Islamist rebel allies.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.

An AFP correspondent at the scene saw two buildings completely destroyed, adding that the buildings had been housing people displaced from Aleppo province.

Local civil defence workers used bulldozers and their hands to clear large mounds of rubble.

Yahya Arjah, a member of the White Helmets group, said they had pulled two people alive from the rubble.

The Observatory said the strikes hit the Al-Qasur neighbourhood of the city, which is the capital of surrounding Idlib province.

It said 14 of the dead were members of a single family, and also said the dead included people displaced from the north of Aleppo province, which neighbours Idlib.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began six years ago with anti-government protests.

Russia began a military intervention in Syria in September 2015, and in the past has dismissed allegations of civilian deaths in its strikes. </s> Image copyright AFP Image caption Residential buildings in the rebel-held city of Idlib were badly damaged by the explosion

At least 40 people have reportedly been killed in an explosion and a series of air strikes across the rebel-held north Syrian province of Idlib.

The blast, on Sunday night outside the headquarters of the Islamist rebel faction Ajnad al-Qawqaz in the city of Idlib, left 25 people dead.

The cause was not clear but many believed a car bomb was responsible.

Activists say another 15 people were killed in Syrian government and Russian air strikes elsewhere on Sunday.

The attacks came as the Syrian military announced they had recaptured the strategically important town of Sinjar in south-eastern Idlib.

Troops are advancing towards Abu al-Zuhour airbase, about 14km (nine miles) away, which rebels captured when they seized control of most of the province in 2015.

The large explosion in the centre of the provincial capital damaged several buildings and destroyed vehicles parked on Thalatheen Street.

The Syria Civil Defence, whose rescue workers are known as the White Helmets, says four children and 11 women were among the 25 people killed.

Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Rescue workers rushed to the scene on Sunday night and pulled victims from the rubble

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, put the death toll at 34, including 19 civilians. Other fatalities are believed to have been members of Ajnad al-Qawqaz, it said.

In the rebel faction are many foreign fighters from the Caucasus and Russia and it is allied with Hayat Tahir al-Sham, a jihadist force linked to al-Qaeda.

The Syrian Observatory attributed the explosion to a car bomb or drone strike.

Rebel-held areas outside the city were also reportedly subjected to deadly air strikes on Sunday:

Eleven members of the same family were killed in a raid on the town of Jarjanaz, 35km to the south-east, according to the Syrian Observatory. The pro-opposition Edlib Media Center said witnesses had identified the aircraft as Russian

The Syria Civil Defence said a father and his son had also been killed and four other members of their family wounded in a strike on the town of Kansafra, 32km south-west of Idlib city

Air strikes reportedly continued across Idlib on Monday. Jarjanaz was targeted again, along with the town of Saraqeb, the Edlib Media Center says.

Idlib, which borders Turkey to the north, is home to an estimated 2.5 million people, including one million who have fled other rebel-held parts of Syria in recent years.

The UN says fighting and air strikes inside Idlib have forced more than 60,000 people to leave their homes since 1 November, and that they are in a "dire" situation. </s> Syrian Airstrike Hits Marketplace Near Turkish Border, Killing More Than Two Dozen

Enlarge this image toggle caption Aaref Watad/AFP/Getty Images Aaref Watad/AFP/Getty Images

Warplanes struck a busy marketplace in a rebel-controlled area of northwestern Syria near the border with Turkey. Many children are reported to be among the dead.

As NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports,

"A video [was] filmed in the Syrian town of Harim seconds after the airstrike hit. A plume of smoke rises and children's crying fills the air. Residents say the payload hit a busy market, and rescuers count at least 36 people dead — 12 children among them. "Photos sent to NPR by a resident there show many burned corpses on stretchers. In one, three toddlers lie motionless and blooded on a blanket on the floor. "This town in the northern province of Idlib has been a destination for Syrians fleeing violence in other parts of the country. Rebels and their families today evacuated to this province from Eastern Ghouta near the capital Damascus."

The Associated Press reports that hundreds of Syrian rebels and their families departed Eastern Ghouta in dozens of white buses en route to Idlib. The evacuations have been part of a deal with the government in which the rebels surrender ground in order to be allowed to flee.

The number of casualties in Idlib varies in the preliminary reports of the incident.

In a tweet, the rescue organization White Helmets reports the number of dead at 35 civilians and more than 50 injured.

Another tweet shows rescuers pulling an unidentified man out of the bombed rubble. It reports that Russian aircraft targeted the town of Harim. That claim could not be independently confirmed.

Earlier this week, Syrian rebels fired rockets from eastern Ghouta into a government-controlled neighborhood of Damascus, killing 35 and wounding 20 more, the Associated Press reported citing Syrian state-run media. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the conflict in Syria (all times local):

The Russian Defense Ministry says a Su-33 fighter jet, based on the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea after returning from a sortie over Syria.

The ministry says in a statement that was reported by Russian news agencies that "because of the failure of the arrester system's cable, the Su-33 fighter rolled off the deck" on Monday.

The pilot of the aircraft successfully ejected and was unharmed in the incident. The ministry added that Russian military operations over Syria will not be affected by the incident.

This is the second loss of an aircraft from Russia's only aircraft carrier since it arrived off Syria last month. The Defense Ministry said that a Mig-29 fighter crashed into the sea on Nov. 15 while attempting to land on the Admiral Kuznetsov.

Syrian activists say Russian and Syrian aircraft have stepped up their assaults on the rebel-held province of Idlib, a day after air raids killed more than 60 people.

The activist-run Local Coordination Committees is reporting airstrikes on the towns of Binnish, Maarat Nasaan, and Saraqib, as well as the provincial capital, Idlib.

The network says the Monday morning airstrikes killed three children. It blamed the attacks on Russian aircraft.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported strikes on Idlib city. It says 288 civilians have been killed in the province since Oct. 20, when Syrian government and Russian aircraft intensified airstrikes.

The Syrian Civil Defense first responder group said 65 civilians were killed in Sunday airstrikes across the province, including attacks on two rural marketplaces that killed dozens.
A market in the town of Harem, Idlib province, is reportedly struck by Russian aircraft, killing 35 people including 12 children.