Deadly new air strikes as Syria army battles jihadists

Kafr Aweid, Syria: Syrian government aircraft bombed several towns in northwestern Syria on Thursday killing eight civilians as troops and militia battled jihadists on the ground, a monitor said.

The new bombardment of the largely jihadist-controlled region of Idlib followed strikes on Tuesday night and Wednesday that killed 23 civilians, 12 of them at a busy market. In the Idlib town of Kafr Aweid, airstrikes on Thursday blew in the facades of buildings, littering their interiors with mounds of rubble, an AFP photographer reported.

Two young girls were killed in airstrikes on the town, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. An AFP photographer saw a young boy running barefoot from the site of a blast covered in dust — his eyes filled with tears, and spatters of blood visible on his feet.

In neighbouring Hama province, Syrian troops battled for a third straight day to repel a jihadist counterattack around the town of Kafr Nabuda, leaving 17 combatants dead, 11 of them jihadists, the Observatory said. Syrian government forces retook the town on May 8 but the jihadists seized most of it back on Wednesday, the Britain-based war monitor said.