BEIRUT (Reuters) - Air strikes by Syrian or Russian warplanes on Wednesday killed at least 26 people, most of them schoolchildren, in a village in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, rescue workers and a monitoring group said.

The raids hit a residential area and a school in Haas village, the Syrian Civil Defence rescue workers’ network said on its Facebook account.

Syria’s civil war pits President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi’ite Muslim militias from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan against an array of mostly Sunni Muslim rebel groups, including some backed by Turkey, Gulf monarchies and the United States.

A report on Syrian state TV quoted a military source as saying a number of militants had been killed when their positions were targeted in Haas, but made no mention of a school.

Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said: “It’s horrible, I hope we were not involved. It’s the easiest thing for me to say no, but I’m a responsible person, so I need to see what my Ministry of Defence is going to say.”

Anthony Lake, the head of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, said of the attack: “If deliberate, it is a war crime.”

“This latest atrocity may be the deadliest attack on a school since the war began more than five years ago,” Lake said in a statement.

Idlib, which is in northwest Syria near Aleppo, contains the largest populated area controlled by rebels - both nationalist groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and Islamist fighters including the former al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

The Civil Defence network, which operates in rebel-held areas in the country, said 20 of the dead in Wednesday’s attacks were children.

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Photos taken at the scene showed buildings with walls reduced to rubble, including what appeared to be the school with upturned desks and chairs covered in dust.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said the warplanes had struck several locations in Haas including an elementary and middle school, killing at least one teacher as well as children, though it gave a lower toll of 15 children killed.

Western countries and international human rights groups have regularly highlighted the high number of civilian deaths reported after Syrian and Russian air strikes. </s> The Observatory, a British-based war monitor, said warplanes struck several locations in the Haas village, including an elementary and middle school, killing at least one teacher as well as the children.

A report on Syrian state TV quoted a military source as saying a number of militants had been killed when their positions were targeted in Haas, but did not mention a school.

Syria's civil war pits President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi'ite Muslim militias from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan against an array of mostly Sunni rebel groups including some backed by Turkey, Gulf monarchies and the U.S.

Idlib, near Aleppo in northwest Syria, contains the largest populated area controlled by rebels, both nationalist groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and Islamist ones including the former al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

The high death toll from strikes by the Syrian military and Russian air force in rebel-held areas has prompted criticism from Western countries and international human rights groups. </s> Shelling by Syrian rebels killed several children at a school in government-held western Aleppo on Thursday, state media and a monitoring group said, just a day after air strikes on a school in a rebel-held village in Idlib, 50km (32 miles) away.

The shells hit two neighborhoods, Syrian state news agency SANA reported: the national school in the Shahaba area, killing three children and wounding more than a dozen others, and the other attack killed three people in Hamdaniya.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the five-year-old war, said six children under the age of 16 had been killed in the two attacks, including a baby.

Syria's largest city before the war, Aleppo has been divided between government and opposition sectors for years.

Wednesday's air strikes hit a school in the Haas village in rebel-held Idlib, killing at least 15 school children, an attack that Western countries have blamed on the Syrian military and Russian air force. Moscow has denied involvement. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on developments related to Syria (all times local):

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is condemning the bombing of rebel-held eastern Ghouta and also calling the situation in the northern Syrian district of Afrin unacceptable.

Merkel said in a speech to the German parliament Wednesday that it's important to address the reasons why people flee their countries and pointed to the situation in Syria.

She said that "for all of Turkey's justified security interests, what is going on in Afrin is unacceptable, with thousands of civilians being persecuted, dying or having to flee."

The U.N. children's agency said Tuesday some 100,000 people were trapped in rural areas of Afrin and in need of humanitarian aid after Turkish and allied Syrian forces drove out a Syrian Kurdish militia there

Syrian rescuers and a war monitor say an airstrike in the rebel-held province of Idlib in northwestern Syria has killed at least 13 people, most of them children.

The Syrian Civil Defense in Idlib says the airstrike hit children running from their school in Kfar Bateekh village because of the jets flying overhead, killing 11 of them. The rescuers said Russian jets were behind the attack.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrike killed at least eight children, adding that the number of those killed is likely to rise as rescuers are still looking for survivors under the rubble. The Observatory said it was not immediately clear who was behind the strikes.

Idlib is the largest area still controlled by insurgents in Syria.

Syria state media say the death toll from a rebel mortar assault on a market in Damascus has risen to 38, making it one of the deadliest attacks in the capital since the start of the seven-year civil war.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Wednesday put the death toll from the attack in Kashkol neighborhood even higher, at 43, including 11 pro-government fighters.

The government blamed the attack on rebels in the eastern suburbs, where Syrian troops backed by Russian warplanes have been waging a major offensive over the past month.

Videos of the aftermath of the attack posted online showed scenes of chaos, with people screaming and bodies and mannequins strewn across the ground.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> Idlib (Syria News) Civilians were either killed or wounded, on Thursday, in air strikes carried out by Russian warplanes on Khan Sheikhon City, in southern Idlib.

Qasioun News reported that Russian warplanes conducted air strikes on the city of Khan Sheikhon, in southern Idlib, killing three civilians and wounding others.

Furthermore, Syrian regime warplanes carried out air strikes and dropped explosive barrels on the villages of Tariya and Tahtaya, in southern Idlib, causing material damage but no casualties were reported.

Syrian and Russian warplanes are intensifying their air strikes for the third day, where more than 140 air strike were conducted on the towns of Idlib and Hama.

Meanwhile, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and other opposition militias are carrying out military operations on the Syrian army locations, in northern Hama, and managed to capture several headquarters near the city of Maan. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — Airstrikes in Syria killed 17 people, mostly children today when warplanes struck a school complex in the northern rebel-held province of Idlib, activists said.

The Idlib News network said the strikes hit as the children were gathered outside the school complex in the village of Hass. The activist-operated group put the death toll at 17, and said most of the victims were children.

There were fears the death toll could rise further as some of the wounded were reported to be in critical condition, the network added. Another activist group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at 22. It said 14 children and a woman were among those killed.

Idlib is the main Syrian opposition stronghold, though radical groups also have a large presence there. It has regularly been hit by Syrian and Russian warplanes as well as the U.S.-led coalition targeting Islamic State militants.

Footage posted by activists on line shows a huge plume of smoke rising from the area of the strikes. Rescuers are seen rushing casualties away along a dusty road lined with destroyed buildings.

A woman's body is seen being carried on a stretcher while other bodies, covered in cloth and one with only a hat, are lying under shrubs in what could possibly have been a garden among the buildings. Other casualties are seen being ferried in pickup trucks. </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> BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian first responders say they have tallied 22 civilian fatalities from a presumed Russian or Syrian government airstrike on the rebel-held city of Idlib.

The Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets, said 15 children have been reported killed by the pre-dawn airstrike today in northwest Syria. It said its rescuers had been working all day to reach victims in the rubble.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported 21 civilians killed. It said the aircraft behind the attack were believed to be Russian. Syrian government aircraft are also known to fly raids over Idlib. The attack occurred in the city's Qasour neighborhood. </s> BEIRUT - Air strikes and government artillery killed at least 20 people, including 10 children, in the largely rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor, said Russian or Syrian government warplanes pounded the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, killing seven children and two pregnant women.

Warplanes and government artillery also killed 11 people in the village of Baarbo in the southwest of the province, the monitor reported.

"The Russian Defence Ministry has denied information reported in multiple foreign media outlets about alleged strikes by the Russian Air Force in the region of Khan Sheikhoun near the city of Idlib," Russia's TASS news agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying on Tuesday.

"Russian jets did not fly in the area on Nov. 8 and no missile strikes were carried out."

Syria's war pits President Bashar al-Assad, supported by Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, against an array of mostly Sunni rebel groups, including some backed by Turkey, Gulf monarchies and the United States.

Idlib contains the largest populated area of Syria controlled by rebels - including nationalist groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and Islamist fighters including the former al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. (Reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut and Jack Stubbs in Moscow; editing by Andrew Roche)
Suspected Syrian or Russian warplanes conduct airstrikes on a residential area and a school in Haas village in rebel-held Idlib Governorate, killing at least 26 civilians, most of them children.