MAARAT AL-NAASAN, Syria —
Syrian regime
shelling killed six civilians including women and children on Saturday in Idlib
province, the country's last main Islamist extremist and rebel bastion, a war
monitor said.
اضافة اعلان
An AFP photographer at the scene reported seeing several
bodies being taken away from a wrecked home in Maarat Al-Naasan, an area close
to regime-controlled territory.
"The shell fell on a civilian home," said the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group with a network of
sources on the ground in the war-torn country.
The monitor said two women and two children were among those
killed, who were all from the same family. Many others were wounded.
The shelling had begun at around 1130 GMT, with more shells
fired intermittently afterwards, the AFP photographer said.
The Syrian regime and its ally
Russia have regularly
targeted hospitals and civilian areas since the start of the war in 2011,
according to the Observatory.
The Idlib region bordering Turkey is home to about three
million people and it is one of the last pockets to oppose Damascus.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, a former Syrian branch of
Al-Qaeda,
controls with its allies about half of the region and parts of neighboring
provinces.
After a months-long military campaign to flush out the
enclave sparked fears of the war's worst bloodshed yet, a ceasefire deal was
reached in March 2020.
The agreement brokered by the regime and the rebels' main
backers — Russia and
Turkey respectively — has largely held since, despite
sporadic flare-ups.
But Damascus has intensified attacks on southern Idlib since
June.
The war in
Syria has killed around half a million people and
displaced millions more, the Observatory says.
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