Syrian regime scraps Idlib ceasefire deal and re-launches airstrikes

The Syrian regime resumed airstrikes in northwest Syria on Monday, a war monitor said, scrapping a brief ceasefire deal covered opposition Idlib province and accusing rebels of breaking the truce.

"Regime warplanes launched their first airstrikes on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib's southern countryside" since late Thursday, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. 

The bombardment came minutes after the Syrian regime military said it would resume operations against the Idlib region, just days after it agreed to a truce ending months of deadly bombardment of the province.

"Armed terrorist groups, backed by Turkey, refused to abide by the ceasefire and launched many attacks on civilians in surrounding areas," state news agency SANA reported Syria's military as saying, referring to opposition fighters.

"The armed forces will resume their military operations against terrorists," it said, ending a truce that came into effect on Friday. 

Minutes later, Damascus said rebel fire hit near a key Russian air base.

"Terrorist groups targeted the Hmeimim air base with a flurry of rockets that fell near the airbase and caused great human and material losses," SANA reported a military source as saying.

The state news agency reportedly then retracted the story after residents in the nearby town of Jableh took to Facebook to denounce the report as "fake", according to a BBC journalist.

Most of Idlib province and parts of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia - which currently hosts some 3 million residents - are controlled by former Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

The region is supposed to be protected by a Turkish-Russian buffer-zone deal that was reached in September last year, but it has come under increasing fire by Damascus and its backer Moscow since the end of April.  

The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has accused Turkey of dragging its feet in implementing the deal, which provided for a buffer zone of up to 20 kilometres between the two sides, free of heavy and medium-sized weaponry.

On Monday, the Syrian regime said it would resume bombardment because last week's truce had been "conditional" on Ankara implementing the buffer zone, according to SANA. 

It accused Ankara of "failing to meet its obligations" by allowing armed groups to continue carrying out attacks, SANA said. 

Airstrikes on the Idlib region had stopped on Friday after the regime's truce announcement. Fighting since late April has killed 790 civilians in regime and Russian attacks, according to the Observatory. 

Fighting over the same period has claimed the lives of nearly two thousand combatants, including 900 regime loyalists, the monitor says. 

Around 400,000 people have been displaced and dozens of hospitals and schools damaged, according to the United Nations.

Syria's conflict has killed more than 370,000 people and driven millions from their homes since it started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.