Regime air strikes kill 18 civilians in Syria

IDLIB, Syria: Regime air strikes on Syria’s last major opposition bastion killed 18 civilians on Saturday, a war monitor said, one day before a ceasefire is due to take effect.

Six children were among the dead in the northwest province of Idlib, where a fresh ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey is expected to go into effect after midnight, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Air strikes on the city of Idlib killed seven civilians, while separate raids on two towns near the provincial capital killed 11 others, the Britain-based war monitor said.

In Idlib city, the bombardment hit near a cultural centre, according to the war monitor and an AFP correspondent who was in the area.

Scores of students, many of them crying, ran from the site of the blast in panic, the AFP correspondent said.

The bombardment surprised residents in a city that has been relatively free from the near-daily attacks that have hit Idlib province’s flash-point south, the correspondent added.

Less than 10 kilometres (six miles) away, regime air strikes hit a market in the town of Binnish, killing 7, according to the Observatory.

The market was mostly reduced to rubble, as thick white smoke from the strikes created a fog, according to an AFP correspondent there.

South of Idlib city, raids hit the area of Al-Nerab, killing four.

Jihadist-dominated Idlib has come under mounting bombardment in recent weeks, displacing tens of thousands of people in the northwestern region home to some three million.