4 civilians killed in airstrike in Syria's Idlib

By Esref Musa and Burak Karacaoglu

IDLIB, Syria (AA) – At least four civilians were killed in an airstrike in Syria’s northwestern Idlib on Saturday, according to the White Helmets civil-defense agency.

Mustafa Haj Yousuf, head of the White Helmets, told Anadolu Agency that a warplane targeted the civil-defense team which was conducting search and rescue efforts in Idlib's Jisr al-Shughur district where was hit by an earlier attack.

Four people, including a civil-defense volunteer, were killed, while two other civil-defense volunteers were heavily injured, Haj Yousuf said.

The SU 34 Russian warplane took off from Khmeimim air base, according to a statement of the opposition’s plane observatory.

- Regime forces continue attacks

The Bashar al-Assad regime and its Iranian-backed terror groups continued heavy bombardment in residential areas of Idlib since early Saturday.

The warplanes of the al-Assad regime also started airstrikes in the evening hours.

Regime attacks in Idlib’s de-escalation zone are estimated to have killed at least 116 civilians -- and injured more than 342 others -- since the beginning of 2019.

In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a demilitarized zone after a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his counterpart Vladimir Putin in Russia's coastal city of Sochi.

Ankara and Moscow signed a memorandum of understanding calling for the stabilization of the situation in Idlib's de-escalation zone, in which acts of aggression are prohibited.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.

* Written by Sena Guler