Russian jets intensified their raids on rebel-held towns and cities in Syria\u2019s northern Idlib province on Sunday night, a day after rebels shot down a Russian<\/p>\n
warplane and killed its pilot.<\/p>\n
Civil defence sources said air raids struck the towns of Kafr Nubl and Maasran, as well as the cities of Saraqeb, Maarat al Numan and Idlib, and that several<\/p>\n
deaths and dozens of injuries were reported as rescuers dug through the rubble.<\/p>\n
A hospital was hit in Maarat al Numan, witnesses and residents said, and at least five people were feared killed in another attack that damaged a residential<\/p>\n
building in Kafr Nubl.<\/p>\n
Video recorded by rescuers showed babies on stretchers being rushed by civil defence workers out of the damaged hospital while other rescuers fought to<\/p>\n
extinguish a fire.<\/p>\n
In Idlib city, the provincial capital, one witness said a five-storey building was levelled and that at least 15 people were feared dead.<\/p>\n
In December, the Syrian army alongside Iranian-backed militias and heavy Russian airpower launched a major offensive to take territory in Idlib province, the last<\/p>\n
and most-densely populated province still mainly under opposition control.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s defence ministry and Syrian rebels said the Russian SU-25 jet was downed on Saturday in an area that has seen fierce fighting on the ground and<\/p>\n
heavy air strikes targeting rebel groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n
Syrians who oppose Assad view Russia as an invading force and blame it for the deaths of thousands of civilians since Moscow joined the war on the Syrian<\/p>\n
government\u2019s side in 2015.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s defence ministry denies aiming at civilians and says it targets only hardline Islamist militants in Syria.<\/p>\n
Air strikes on Saturday after the downing of the jet killed at least 10 people, including children, in Khan al Subl near where the plane crashed, rescuers said. The<\/p>\n
bodies of a family of seven were pulled from rubble following another attack in the town of Maasran, a local civil defence body said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pulling bodies from under collapsed walls. The Russians are taking their revenge on civilians, many of whom were already displaced and had fled their<\/p>\n
homes from earlier bombardment,\u201d said Ahmad Hilal, a civil defence rescuer.<\/p>\n
The Syrian army and its Iranian Shi\u2019ite militias allies made a string of gains in the last week after capturing a major air base that brought them just 12 km (7.5<\/p>\n
miles) from Saraqeb, the first heavily populated city in Idlib within their reach.<\/p>\n
They were pushing towards the main Damascus-Aleppo highway, the capture of which would cut rebel supply lines and open the door to an army advance into<\/p>\n
the heart of the province.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, rebels led by the militant Turkestan group waged a counter attack against the Syrian army and Iranian backed militias near the Abu Duhur air base in<\/p>\n
southern Idlib.<\/p>\n
The bombardment from the sky and fears of revenge by advancing Syrian troops and Iranian-backed militias have led to an exodus of tens of thousands of<\/p>\n
civilians further north to the safety of makeshift camps on the Syrian side of the Turkish border.<\/p>\n
Syrians have poured into Idlib at an accelerating rate over the last two years, forced to abandon their homes in other parts of Syria that the government and its<\/p>\n
foreign military allies have recaptured from rebels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian jets intensified their raids on rebel-held towns and cities in Syria\u2019s northern Idlib province on Sunday night, a day after rebels shot down a Russian warplane and killed its pilot. Civil defence sources said air raids struck the towns of Kafr Nubl and Maasran, as well as the cities of Saraqeb, Maarat al Numan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20991,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20989\/revisions\/20991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}