ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Russian airstrikes on Syria’s rebel-held northwest killed at least 13 people, including four civilians, a war monitor reported on Sunday.
At least six civilians and three rebel fighters were killed in Jisr al-Shughur in the strikes according to UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). At least 40 other civilians were injured in the rebel-held area of Idlib province, the report added.
The observatory later added that the death toll had risen to 13 in the attack which struck a fruit and vegetable market.
Another three civilians, including two children, and one fighter were killed in a strike outside Idlib city.
Russian forces were responding to drone strikes over the past week that they blame on rebel forces, the monitor said.
SOHR had reported numerous drone strikes on Latakia province, including in President Bashar al-Assad’s hometown of the town of Qardaha. The drone attacks have resulted in an unconfirmed number of civilian casualties.
Half of Idlib province, as well as parts of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces, are the last rebel-held bastions in the country after 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) is the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda and is the prominent force among dozens of different rebel factions operating in the area. It has been internationally recognized as a terrorist organization.
Russia has been Assad’s strongest ally throughout the war that initially began as an uprising turned into a brutal civil war.
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).
