(Zaman Al Wasl)- Five civilians, including three children, were killed Thursday in fresh regime airstrikes on northern Idlib province as regime forces suffer setbacks and heavy losses.
According to Zaman al-Wasl reporter, the victims were from the same family as regime strikes hit the town of Saraqeb.
A mother and her two children were also killed in regime airstrikes on Wednesday.
The airstrikes and shelling came amid a regime offensive on the northwestern provinces of Idlib, the last rebel stronghold in the country, and rebel-held parts of nearby Aleppo province.
On Tuesday, airstrikes killed at least 17 people, including an entire family, Syrian opposition activists said.
The opposition's Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, said airstrikes killed at least 24 people, including 13 children.
Meanwhile, state-run media said rebels had launched a major attack on regime forces in Idlib on Thursday that Russia's defence ministry said killed up to 40 Syrian soldiers.
Russia's defence ministry said that militants had seized two settlements in one of the offensives, which began on Wednesday, forcing regime troops to abandon some of their positions in the southeast of the so-called Idlib de-escalation zone under rocket fire.
Naji al-Mustafa, spokesman for the National Liberation Front coalition of rebel groups, disputed the Syrian media and Russian government accounts and said no such assault had taken place on Wednesday or Thursday.
Mustafa said attacks had been carried out against regime forces earlier in the week as a response to stepped up strikes against them in Idlib, but the area had seen no operations over the past 24 hours.
The Syrian Observatory war monitor also said there was no attack on government forces in Idlib on Thursday but that it had recorded about 400 Russian and Syrian airstrikes on the area since Wednesday, part of a stepped up assault since December.
Most of Idlib province and parts of Aleppo province are still controlled by factions opposed to the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The regime attack comes despite a ceasefire announced by Russia earlier this month that never really took hold.
Idlib province alone is home to at least three million people, many of whom are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.
According to the UN humanitarian coordination agency OCHA, almost 350,000 people have fled their homes since December 1, mainly heading northwards from southern Idlib, which has borne the brunt of the air strikes, according to AFP.
The International Rescue Committee has warned that an additional 650,000 people, the majority of them children and women, could be forced from their homes if the violence continues.
(Zaman Al Wasl, Agencies)
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