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SYRIA-CONFLICT
Bombardment in northwest Syria kills 9 civilians: monitor
BEIRUT, July 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Regime and russian bombardment on
Sunday killed 9 civilians in northwestern Syria where ramped up attacks by
the two allies have claimed hundreds of lives since April, a war monitor
said.
Idlib and parts of the neighbouring provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia
are under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group led by
Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate.
The region is supposed to be protected from a massive government offensive
by a September buffer zone deal, but it has come under increasing fire by
Damascus and its backer Moscow over the past three months.
Regime air strikes Sunday killed five civilians in the Idlib town of
Ariha, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Russian raids, meanwhile, killed two civilians in northern Hama, according
to the Britain-based monitor.
Shelling and air strikes by the regime also killed two other civilians
elsewhere in the northwest, it added.
The bombardment comes a day after regime and Russian air strikes on the
region killed 15 civilians, including 11 in Ariha, the monitor said.
Some three million people, nearly half of them already displaced from
other parts of the country, live in the Idlib region.
Attacks by the Syrian regime and its ally Russia have claimed more than
740 lives there since late April, according to the war monitor.
The UN says more than 400,000 people have been displaced.
The war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced
millions since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government
protests.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1905HRS