Russian airstrikes kill 14 civilians in Idlib, Syria

By Esref Musa and Burak Karacaoglu

ANKARA (AA) - At least 14 civilians were killed by air raids in the northern Syrian province of Idlib on Saturday, a civil defense official said.

According to Mustafa Hajj Youssef, director of the White Helmets civil defense agency in Idlib, the air raids targeted the villages of Bsenkul, Ariha, and Dana.

He said there were also many injured people and he fears the death toll may rise.

An opposition air observatory also confirmed that Russian warplanes attacked these residential areas.

Over the last three weeks, airstrikes on civilian settlements in the Idlib and Hama regions have left 112 civilian dead and 110 injured, according to civil defense sources.

Controlled by anti-regime armed groups, Idlib has been under intense airstrikes for the last one-and-a-half months.

Located in northern Syria near the Turkish border, last May Idlib was declared a "de-escalation zone" where acts of aggression are forbidden.

UN officials say hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict.

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