Syria: Assad regime strikes kill 1, wound 5 in Idlib

By Esref Musa and Burak Karacaoglu

IDLIB, Syria (AA) – At least one civilian was killed and five were wounded in the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria, the White Helmets civil defense group said on Sunday.

The Bashar al-Assad regime struck the Khan Shaykhun district in Idlib’s de-escalation zone, Kafr Zita in northern rural Hama, and nearby districts with mortars and cannons.

A civilian woman was killed in Bidama in rural western Idlib, and five others were killed following the attack.

Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

The Syrian regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone.

The de-escalation zone is currently inhabited by about 4 million civilians, including hundreds of thousands of people displaced by regime forces from their cities and towns throughout the war-weary country in recent years.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the 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.

*Writing by Ali Murat Alhas