Airstrikes hit opposition areas west of Syria’s Aleppo, monitor says

Warplanes struck opposition territory in northwestern Syria on Sunday for the first time since Turkey and Russia agreed to create a buffer zone in the province of Idlib in September, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The U.K.-based monitoring group said Assad regime ally Russia “likely” carried out the airstrikes that hit the suburbs west of Aleppo city, near Idlib.

On Saturday, the Observatory said Assad regime shelling killed nine civilians, including seven children, in the planned de-militarization zone in Idlib.

Idlib and some surrounding areas are the last major opposition bastion in Syria, where the Russian-backed regime has in recent months retaken much of the territory it had lost since the civil war erupted in 2011.

It had threatened an assault on opposition territory, home to around 3 million people, but a deal for a demilitarized buffer zone around it was reached in September between Ankara and Moscow.

The accord, reached on September 17, aims to stave off a massive regime assault on the region by creating a 15 to 20-kilometer (nine to 12-mile) buffer zone ringing the area and separating regime fighters from the opposition in Idlib.

Source: Daily Sabah