Syrian regime shelling kills one in rebel-held Idlib: Monitor

ERBI, Kurdistan Region - At least one civilian was killed and five others were injured in artillery strikes carried out by the Syrian army on the northwestern Idlib province, the last remaining rebel bastion in the area, a war monitor reported on Wednesday. 

“A 5-year-old girl was killed and five civilians were injured with varying degrees of wounds as a result of heavy artillery shelling by regime forces, targeting agricultural lands around the villages of Maarbalit and Maarzaf southeast of Idlib,” reported the UK-based watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.

Syrian regime forces shelled the towns of Nairab, San, Majdalaya, and Benin in eastern Idlib countryside, and a regime suicide drone targeted the outskirts of Deir Sunbul village in southern Idlib countryside, while the Syrian-rebels shelled Syrian army positions in the Shorin and Jabal al-Ahmar camps, according to SOHR. 

Rebel sites in Idlib and Latakia were also targeted by at least seven Russian airstrikes on the same day. 
 
Half of Idlib province, as well as parts of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces, are the last rebel-held bastions in the country after President Bashar al-Assad seized back swathes of territory over the course of the brutal Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011. 

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, is the prominent force among dozens of different rebel factions operating in the rebel-held northwest. It controls large swathes of Idlib and parts of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces. 

It has been internationally recognized as a terrorist organization. 

A ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey has been in place in northwest Syria since March 2020, but the area has witnessed a recent flare-up in violence. 

Over 13 million Syrians have been displaced since the start of the civil war, more than six million of which are refugees who have fled the war-torn country, according to a report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).