10 people killed in artillery attack, mostly in rebel-held Idlib

Syrian regime forces and rebel groups exchanged shelling in northwestern Syria on Monday that killed at least 10 people, the vast majority of them in rebel-held areas, state media and opposition activists said.

The area has been witnessing acts of violence in recent weeks between government forces and insurgents on the edge of the last rebel stronghold in the northwestern province of Idlib.

The region had been relatively calm since a truce brokered in March last year by Turkey and Russia halted a crushing three-month Russian-backed regime air and ground campaign that had killed hundreds and sent 1 million people fleeing toward the Turkish border.

Opposition activists say regime forces fired dozens of artillery shells on the villages of Ihsim and Barah on the southern edge of Idlib killing nine people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitoring group. It added that 13 people were wounded in Barah.

Idlib-based activist Taher al-Omar said the dead included a local commander of the al-Qaida linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as well as several others fighters from another militant group. He added that three civilians were killed as well.

Northwestern Syria is home to 3.5 million refugees but is controlled by opposition Islamist fighters.

Rebels in return shelled the government-held village of Joreen, killing a girl and wounding her father, said Syria's state news agency, SANA.

The regime forces used the Russian laser-guided Krasnopol artillery shells in their attacks, which was usually used to destroy fortified field installations.

Russia had used this type of projectile for the first time last March, targeting 3 Atarib Surgical Hospital in the western countryside of Aleppo, killing 8 civilians, including woman and a child, in addition to the Significant material damage to the building of the external hospital and a number of its clinics and facilities, which at that time caused the hospital to go out of service.

Syria's 10-year conflict has killed half a million people and displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million. They include 5 million who are refugees outside the country.

(Zaman, Agencies)