In Syria, at least 10 civilians were killed in air strikes and shelling by regime forces in Idlib province.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two children were among six people killed in the strikes on the town of Kafr Aweid. Another civilian died in shelling on the northern Hama countryside.

According to the Monitor, a woman and her two children were also killed during airstrikes that hit a motorcycle in the town of Maaret al-Numan. </s> 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> 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> 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> 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> 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> BEIRUT >> Warplanes struck rebel-held parts of Syria Saturday hitting a women’s prison and a clinic, killing and wounding scores of people, amid clashes on multiple fronts between government forces and insurgent groups in some of the worst violence the country has witnessed in weeks, opposition activists said Saturday.

The airstrikes, of which some activists said included Russian air raids, concentrated on the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, the central province of Hama and suburbs of the capital Damascus that have come under attack by insurgent groups over the past week.

One of the airstrikes hit a main street in the Damascus suburb of Hamouriyeh killing at least 16 people and wounded more than 50, activists said. The airstrikes caused wide destruction in the area.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrikes killed 16, including eight women and children, and wounded more than 50. The Local Coordination said 18 were killed and dozens were wounded.

Both groups said some people are still missing, and that the death toll could rise.

“They have been hitting Hamouriyeh for days but today they struck an area packed with civilians,” said Awis al-Shami of The Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets, via text message.

The airstrikes come as insurgent groups have been on the offensive in Damascus and the central province of Hama for the past days. Government forces and their allies launched a counteroffensive capturing some of the areas they lost in Damascus and Hama.

Opposition activists also reported airstrikes in Idlib province hitting several towns and villages as well as the provincial capital the carries the same name.

The Observatory said a Friday night attack struck a prison run by militants, killing at least 16 people including prisoners and prison staff in Idlib city. It added that women were among the dead as well.

The monitoring group, which has a network of activists around the country, said some people were killed by gunfire as prison guards chased detainees who tried to flee after the attack.

The Syrian National Coalition, one of the largest opposition groups, said the airstrikes on Idlib targeted among other things a women’s prison, saying that dozens of people were killed or wounded.

The Observatory and the Syrian Civil Defense group, also known as the White Helmets, said an airstrike struck a clinic in the village of Kfar Nubul in Idlib province. They had no immediate word on casualties.

The Local Coordination Committees said five air raids struck the city of Idlib without giving further details.

Idlib is a stronghold of Syrian insurgent groups and is regularly targeted by Syrian and Russian warplanes.

In the central province of Hama, Syrian government forces and their allies launched a counteroffensive, capturing some of the areas they lost in an attack by insurgents earlier this week.

The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said Saturday that government forces regained control of the village of Kawkab and repelled an attack on the town of Qamhana.

The Observatory reported intense clashes in the area adding that, under the pressure of shelling and airstrikes, insurgents had to withdraw from some recently gained areas.

On Wednesday, insurgents advanced to within a few kilometers of the government-held city of Hama in their new offensive spearheaded by an al-Qaida-linked group.

The fighting forced thousands of civilians to flee the area, according to international aid groups. </s> At least five civilians were killed by Russian and Syrian government warplanes that targeted Syria's northwest as residents marked the holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

A local source told Anadolu Agency the five people died on Wednesday in air attacks targeting the town of Kansafra and three villages in Idlib.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor put the death toll at 10, saying two children were among those killed.

Another civilian died in shelling by government forces on the northern Hama countryside, also held by rebels, said the group, which relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria.

Government air attacks also hit a motorcycle in the Idlib town of Maaret al-Numan, killing a woman and her two children, said the Observatory.

Air war

Wednesday's attacks come amid an escalation in violence in the country's northwest that is held by Syria's former al-Qaeda affiliate Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham.

A September deal was supposed to avert a full-out government offensive on Idlib province and adjacent areas, home to about three million people, nearly half of whom have been displaced from other parts of Syria.

But the government and its ally Russia have since late April ramped up deadly air raids and rocket fire on the region, and fighters have clashed on its edges.

The bombardment of Idlib province and neighbouring areas has killed more than 300 people since late April, according to the Observatory.

It also displaced nearly 270,000 people in May alone, according to the United Nations.

A total of 24 health facilities and 35 schools have been hit in the latest escalation, according to the UN's humanitarian office.

Analysts predict that President Bashar al-Assad and his allies will continue to chip away at the area, but not unleash a major assault that would create chaos on Turkey's doorstep.

The conflict in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people since it started in 2011 with millions displaced.
Government air attacks hit a motorcycle in the Idlib town of Maaret al-Numan, killing a woman and her two children.