Ten people killed in Russian airstrikes on Idlib market: activists

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 10 people, including children, were killed in airstrikes rocked a marketplace in Idlib province as regime forces and their Russian allies intensified an air offensive on the country's northwest, activists and rescue workers said.

Russia has renewed attacks on marketplaces in rebel-held Idlib province, killing ten and wounding 20 in the town of Kafrlata west of Idib city. Two weeks ago, 19 civilians killed in Russian airstrikes on the main market of Ariha town.

Two more civilians were killed Wednesday in airstrikes on the western region of Aleppo province.

The heavy aerial bombing targeted most of the western and southern countryside of Aleppo.

The regime forces have been on the offensive for more than a month in northwestern Idlib province and parts of Aleppo, the last rebel stronghold in the country. But in recent days, the regime captured more than a dozen villages in the area as the insurgents' defenses began to crumble. Al-Qaida linked rebels control much of Idlib province and small parts of the adjacent area in Aleppo.

State-run news agency said on Wednesday that regime troops took Maaret al-Numan, a key rebel-held town in the country's northwest.

Zaman al-Wasl reporter said the regime forces had also seized the town of Khan al-Sobol near Maaret al-Numan.

According to Syria's Response Coordination Group, 40,000 displaced people have headed to areas near the Turkish border due to the attacks that violate a cease-fire agreement between Turkey and Russia.

Mohammad Hallaj, the director of the group, told Anadolu Agency that the civilians left their homes in Idlib province's Saraqib city, Ariha town and Mt. Zawiya area.

Approximately 541,000 civilians have been displaced from the settlements of Idlib’s southern, southeastern, and Aleppo’s western and southern rural areas since Nov. 2019.

Nearly half a million people have been killed and millions displaced in Syria's long-running civil war, which erupted in 2011 in the form of anti-government protests amid Arab Spring uprisings and eventually turned into an armed insurgency.

Zaman Al Wasl