Regime airstrikes on Syria's Idlib kill at least 20 including children

Air strikes by the Assad regime and Russian forces killed at least 20 people in rebel-held northwestern Syria on Saturday, activists and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The attacks hit five villages in the Idlib region of the northwest, part of the last major territorial foothold of the insurgency against the Assad regime.

Russian jets killed at least nine people in an attack that hit a market in the village of Balyoun and another four people in a strike on the village of al-Bara, the Observatory said.

Five more people were killed in a barrel bomb attack by the regime helicopters on the village of Abdita, the Observatory said. Barrel bombs killed two more people in the villages of Jebghas and Tel Minis, it added.

Pro-Assad media carried no reports of military operations by the Syrian army or its Russian ally in those areas on Saturday.

The Observatory said eight children were among the dead.

Russia and Turkey, which backs the Syrian opposition and has troops on the ground in Idlib, brokered a ceasefire in the northwest in August but attacks have continued since then.
At least 11 people were killed in the regime air strikes that hit two outdoor markets on Monday, the civil defence said.

The Idlib region, which is home to some three million people including many displaced by Syria's civil war, is controlled by the country's former Al-Qaeda affiliate.

The Damascus regime has repeatedly said it will eventually take back control of Idlib.

Assad forces launched a blistering military campaign against the region in April, killing around 1,000 civilians and displacing more than 400,000 people from their homes.

A ceasefire announced by Moscow has largely held since late August, although the Observatory says deadly bombardment and skirmishes have persisted.

More than 200 civilians have been killed in the region since then, it says.

Syria's war has killed over 370,000 people and displaced millions from their homes since beginning in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-Assad protests.