Regime raids kill 7 in Idlib, Syria

IDLIB, Syria

At least seven civilians were killed and 16 injured in regime airstrikes in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on Sunday, according to local civil defense officials.

Regime warplanes struck a workshop in central Idlib, killing four people and injuring four others, the officials said, requesting anonymity due to security concerns.

Raids also targeted two schools in the Maaret al-Nuaman region and the opposition-held village of Maaret Masrin, killing three people and injuring 12 students, the source said.

Meanwhile, six civilians were injured when Syrian regime forces shelled a number of opposition-held villages near the Turkish border, local sources said.

Last week, Human Rights Watch said a joint Russian-Syrian regime attack on a school complex in Idlib last month, in which dozens of people were killed, could constitute a war crime.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and millions more displaced.

Reporting by Khaled Suleiman; Writing by Mohamed Sabry Emam Muhammed;