Families killed as Assad regime bombards Idlib villages

Airstrikes and artillery fire conducted by Syria's brutal Assad regime on Tuesday killed 14 civilians in the last major opposition bastion in the northwest of the country, a war monitor said.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime artillery fire killed six civilians from the same family - including a mother and her three children - in the village of Badama, western Idlib.

In the village of Maasaran, also in Idlib, regime airstrikes killed a further four civilians.

An AFP photographer on site saw a pool of red blood and clothes strewn on the pavement by a shop whose window had been shattered.

"That's the regime for you," a resident said, as he helped a shopkeeper pick up some items of clothing.

Regime bombardment also led to four other civilians losing their lives in other parts of the bastion, the Observatory said.

The regime and Russia resumed airstrikes on Idlib province at the beginning of November, following a two-month lull. At least 277 civilians, including 72 children and 32 women, were killed last month.

The Damascus regime has repeatedly vowed to take control of the whole of Idlib.

Pro-government forces launched a blistering offensive against the region in April, killing around 1,000 civilians and displacing more than 400,000 people from their homes.

Moscow announced a ceasefire in late August, but the Observatory says deadly bombardment and skirmishes have persisted.

It says more than 200 civilians have been killed in the region since the deal.

The Syrian war began when the regime, in power since 1963 and led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded with military force to peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms during the Arab Spring wave of uprisings, triggering an armed rebellion fuelled by mass defections from the Syrian army.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in the war, mostly by the regime and its powerful allies, and millions have been displaced both inside and outside of Syria.

The brutal tactics pursued mainly by the regime, which have included the use of chemical weapons, sieges, mass executions and torture against civilians have led to war crimes investigations.



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