Twelve civilians were killed in regime airstrikes in Syria’s northwestern de-escalation zones, sources with the White Helmets civil defense agency said on Wednesday.

The attacks targeted the towns of Maarat Al-Numan and Maarat Herma in Idlib province, the sources said.

Also, regime forces and Iran-back terrorist group shelled the town of Khan Sheykhun and the villages of Al-Kassabiyya, Abdin, Karasaa, Kafr Sajna and Al-Naqeer.

Some 1.5 million people currently reside in Idlib, half are displaced from other parts of the war-torn country.

Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression would be expressly prohibited.

The Syrian regime, however, has consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in early 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected severity. </s> Twelve civilians were killed in regime airstrikes in Syria's northwestern de-escalation zones, sources with the White Helmets civil defense agency said yesterday.

The attacks targeted the towns of Maarat Al-Numan and Maarat Herma in Idlib province, the sources said.

Also, regime forces and Iran-back terrorist group shelled the town of Khan Sheykhun and the villages of Al-Kassabiyya, Abdin, Karasaa, Kafr Sajna and Al-Naqeer.

These new deaths brought the figure to more than 455 civilians who have lost their lives in Idlib since April 25.

Idlib is the opposition's last enclave. Its pre-war population of 1.5 million has swelled to around 3 million with new refugee waves after it was designated a "de-escalation zone" under the Astana agreement between Turkey, Russia and Iran in May 2017 to pave the way for a permanent political solution in Syria.

The regime has intensified their attacks on the area since April 26 under the pretext of fighting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants holed up inside Idlib. The intermittent attacks and bombardment have killed, wounded and displaced thousands of people. Residential areas have been destroyed by indiscriminate attacks while numerous educational facilities, health facilities and residential areas have collapsed or have become unusable after being targeted by bombs. </s> At least six civilians were killed by regime airstrikes in Syria’s northwestern de-escalation zones, according to sources within the White Helmets civil-defense agency.

The attacks occurred in the towns of Khan Sheykhun, Jisr al-Shughour and Saraqib in Syria’s Idlib province, the sources said. According to the same sources, regime forces and Iran-backed terrorist groups also shelled the towns of Maarat al-Numan and Maarat Herma, along with the villages of Al-Kassabiyya, Abdin, Karasaa, Kafr Sajna and Al-Naqeer.

Some 1.5 million people currently reside in Idlib, half of whom have been displaced from their homes in other parts of the country.

Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression would be expressly prohibited. The Syrian regime, however, has consistently broken the terms of the truce, staging frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone. </s> There are concerns that the number of deaths could rise as the condition of some wounded civilians were critical

File photo shows civil defence members extinguishing a fire broke out after Russian air strikes hit Idlib's Ma’arrat al-Numan district, Syria on February 7, 2018. (AA)

At least seven civilians were killed in airstrikes carried out by Russian aircraft in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, local civil defense officials said Wednesday.

"During the airstrike attacks of the war planes in Ma'arrat Hurma village seven civilians were killed and 10 civilians injured, mostly women and children. In the Hass village the children and Nisa hospital was attacked," Mustafa Hajj Youssef, director of the White Helmets civil-defence agency said.

Youssef said that after search and rescue operations ended, the airstrikes started again.

There are concerns that the number of deaths could rise as the condition of some wounded civilians were critical, Youssef added.

Additionally an air observatory officer, Hilal Muhammad said that the war planes took off from Russia's Khmeimim Airbase in western Syria and conducted their first attack in southern Idlib's Urum al-Joz village after attacking Ma'arrat Hurma village.

Notably, Idlib falls within a network of de-escalation zones, endorsed by Turkey, Russia and Iran, in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

Controlled largely by anti-regime groups, Idlib has remained the target of intense airstrikes for the last two months. In January alone, 211 civilians were killed in the province while another 1,447 were injured.

During the airstrike attacks in Idlib's de-escalation zone at least six hospitals and health centres were also targeted.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.

Source: AA </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> A Syrian boy cries as he stands next to a building hit by an air strike on the village of Maaret al-Numan, in the country's northern province of Idlib, on December 4, 2016 (AFP Photo/Mohamed al-Bakour)

Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - Suspected Russian air strikes killed at least 46 people in opposition-held parts of Syria Sunday, a monitor said, as government forces advanced in fierce clashes with rebels in east Aleppo.

Syria's government is waging an offensive to recapture all of second city Aleppo, and it has so far captured more than 60 percent of eastern districts that fell to rebels in 2012.

In Idlib province, in northwest Syria, at least 26 civilians were killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Kafr Nabel, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

An eyewitness told AFP warplanes hit several places in the town, including a market.

The Observatory says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

The group said 18 people were also killed in suspected Russian strikes on the town of Maaret al-Numan, where an AFP photographer saw rescue workers and residents trying to pull survivors from rubble at a market.

The monitor reported two additional deaths, one in an earlier strike on Maaret al-Numan and another in Al-Naqir, also in Idlib.

It said six civilians, four of them children, had been killed in a government barrel bomb attack on the town of Al-Tamanah in the same province.

Russia, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad's government, began a military intervention in support of Damascus in September 2015.

Moscow says it is targeting "terrorists" and has dismissed reports of civilian casualties in its strikes.

In east Aleppo, government forces advanced against rebels, taking three neighbourhoods and pushing into a fourth, state media and the Russian defence ministry said.

The army and allied forces are nearly three weeks into an operation to recapture all of the city, divided between regime and rebel forces since 2012.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the offensive, which has made steady gains and threatens to deal Syria's opposition its worst defeat in the five-year civil war.

State television said late Sunday the army had captured the districts of Karm al-Tahan and Myessar and advanced into the Qadi Askar neighbourhood.

The Russian defence ministry said regime forces had also taken the district of Karm al-Katurji.

Rebels are increasingly under pressure in the remaining southeastern districts they control.

State news agency SANA said the air force was dropping leaflets over rebel-held areas urging "militants to abandon their weapons and... allow civilians and the sick and wounded to leave".

Damascus says rebels are preventing civilians from leaving the east and trying to use them as human shields.

But tens of thousands of residents have fled the east as the army has advanced, with some heading south to remaining rebel territory and others going to areas under government or Kurdish control.

The east has been pounded with air strikes, barrel bombs and artillery fire.

At least 311 civilians, including 42 children, have been killed in east Aleppo since the government assault began, the Observatory says.

Rebel fire on west Aleppo in the same period has killed 69 civilians, including 28 children, it says.

On Sunday, the bombardment of rebel districts was so fierce it shook buildings in the west as well as in the east, AFP correspondents on both sides said.

The Observatory said a woman and two children were killed in the eastern neighbourhood of Fardos in government artillery fire.

The latest assault has added to the massive destruction in east Aleppo, which has seen some of the worst violence in the conflict that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

The army has encouraged residents to return to recently recaptured neighbourhoods, but many who have ventured across to see their old homes have found nothing but rubble.

"This is all we found, this photo of my niece. It is precious to us, and we found a copy of the Koran, so we brought that too," said Um Yayha, 55.

The Russian defence ministry also said Syrian government forces took control of the town of Al-Tal outside Damascus after a local truce.

"More than 500 rebels from the Fateh al-Sham Front have left Al-Tal for Idlib over the last days with 1,500 family members," it said, referring to Al-Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate.

Despite international outcry over the conflict, successive attempts to end it have failed.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura on Saturday urged a return to negotiations, warning of a "creeping, ongoing guerilla (war) and no reconstruction" unless peace talks resumed. </s> At least nine civilians were killed and 14 others injured in fresh regime airstrikes in the de-escalation zones in northwestern Syria on Tuesday.

The attacks targeted residential areas in the towns of Jisr al-Shughur, Khan Shaykhun, Maar Shoreen, Hantoteen and Ain Al Bardeh in Idlib province, according to an Anadolu Agency correspondent on the ground.

Turkey and Russia inked a deal in Sochi for a buffer zone in September to prevent a massive regime offensive on the Idlib region near the Turkish border.

Following eight months of calm provided by the Sochi deal, the Assad regime intensified its attacks starting April 26 under the pretext of fighting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants holed up in Idlib.

The offensive has displaced over 300,000 within the opposition-held area and killed hundreds, including medical staff. Residential areas have been destroyed by indiscriminate attacks, while numerous educational facilities, health facilities and residential areas have collapsed or have become unusable after being targeted by bombs.

Aid agencies say the scale of bombardment in the northwest risks further humanitarian disaster, hundreds of thousands of people have already fled toward the Turkish border. </s> War monitor says Syrian and Russian jets struck four facilities, including maternity hospital, in retaliatory assault.

At least four hospitals have been targeted by air strikes in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, killing three people and wounding several, according to a war monitor and rescue teams.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said Syrian government and Russian warplanes conducted the air attack on Tuesday in the countryside of Hama and Idlib.

The attacks came after opposition factions led by a former al-Qaeda affiliate launched an assault on a number of government-held villages along the border between Idlib and Hama.

The raids hit a maternity hospital in the village of al-Tah and a medical outpost in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, as well as near two other hospitals in Idlib province, Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"The raids on the maternity hospital in al-Tah killed an elderly woman who was an employee of the hospital, in the first civilian death in air strikes in Idlib province since May," he said.

According to the medical charity UOSSM, which has provided equipment to the maternity hospital, the woman killed was a cleaner in the facility and other medical staff were wounded.

In a statement distributed to journalists, the charity said two sets of strikes hit the maternity hospital, setting fuel-storage tanks on fire and leaving its incubator room "totally destroyed".

The Syrian government-affiliated Central Military Media outlet acknowledged the opposition offensive just south of Idlib and said forces responded with intensive airstrikes and shelling, killing a number of fighters.

UOSSM condemned the strikes and said that "systematic attacks on hospitals are back despite de-escalation deals".

Idlib is mainly controlled by Hayet Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance of anti-government groups formed in January and linked to al-Qaeda.

It is led by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

READ MORE: Seven White Helmets medics killed in Syria's Idlib

The SOHR said the air strikes were in retaliation for the killing of 19 soldiers when Hayet Tahrir al-Sham launched an attack on government forces in the northern Hama countryside.

The fighting comes just days after Iran, Russia and Turkey announced they would jointly police the de-escalation zone in Idlib and parts of adjacent Hama and Latakia provinces.

Russia has already deployed military police to the other three de-escalation zones - Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, parts of the south and some areas of the central province of Homs.

The agreement excludes the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and Hayet Tahrir al-Sham. </s> Airstrikes in rebel-held northwestern Syria kill at least 8

BEIRUT (AP) — Government forces intensified their bombardment of rebel-held towns and villages in northwest Syria, killing at least eight people Tuesday, including five in an airstrike on a market, opposition activists said.

The new wave of violence that began on April 30 is the worst since September, when Russia and Turkey brokered a cease-fire that averted a government offensive on Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold. The new wave of violence has resulted in hundreds of civilian dead and injured and over 150,000 newly displaced persons, according to the U.N.

Idlib province, that is home of 3 million people many of them displaced from other parts of Syria, is mostly controlled by al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.

The latest wave of violence was triggered by attacks by HTS gunmen that killed dozens of troops.

Opposition-linked first responders, known as the White Helmets, said warplanes bombed a market in the village of Ras el-Ain on Tuesday morning, killing five people, including three children, and wounding 20. White Helmets also said that three other people were killed in the villages of Maar Tamater and Bara.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported airstrikes and shelling on Idlib and northern rebel-held parts of Hama province. It said 13 civilians were killed on Tuesday alone.

The Observatory said insurgents Tuesday attacked army positions in Latakia province on the edge of Idlib killing nine soldiers and pro-government gunmen. The Observatory said three insurgents were killed in the attack.

Syrian state news agency SANA said troops were pounding insurgents' positions "in retaliation for their violations of the truce."

An HTS military commander known as Abu Khaled al-Shami said in comments posted online that the looming battle "will be decisive and we will use all our capabilities that will surprise the enemy."

On Monday, Syrian troops captured the village of al-Bani and the nearby Othman hill in the northern countryside of Hama province.
Syrian government airstrikes in Syria’s northwestern de-escalation zones target the towns of Maarrat al-Nu'man and Maarat Herma in Idlib Governorate, killing twelve civilians.