Idlib (Syria News) Civilians were either killed or wounded, on Thursday, in air strikes carried out by Russian warplanes on Khan Sheikhon City, in southern Idlib.

Qasioun News reported that Russian warplanes conducted air strikes on the city of Khan Sheikhon, in southern Idlib, killing three civilians and wounding others.

Furthermore, Syrian regime warplanes carried out air strikes and dropped explosive barrels on the villages of Tariya and Tahtaya, in southern Idlib, causing material damage but no casualties were reported.

Syrian and Russian warplanes are intensifying their air strikes for the third day, where more than 140 air strike were conducted on the towns of Idlib and Hama.

Meanwhile, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and other opposition militias are carrying out military operations on the Syrian army locations, in northern Hama, and managed to capture several headquarters near the city of Maan.







</s>Russian warplanes and Syrian forces have repelled an offensive by jihadists in a de-escalation zone in Idlib governorate in Syria. The forces killed some 850 militants and destroyed 11 tanks and other assets, Russia’s General Staff reported.

The offensive was launched by the militant group formerly called Al-Nusra Front and its allies on Tuesday morning, a statement from the General Staff said.

The jihadists attacked the positions of government forces stationed to the north and northeast of the city of Hama. The positions are part of a designated de-escalation zone, which covers Idlib governorate, the powerbase of a number of anti-government armed groups in Syria, the Russian military said.

The report accused US security services of instigating the offensive, which, the statement said, is meant to derail the successful operation of Damascus forces east of Deir ez-Zor.

The Russian General Staff said the militants tried to capture a unit of the Russian military police, which have a mandate to monitor the ceasefire in the Idlib de-escalation zone. The unit was forced to fight against a larger enemy presence for several hours, but prevailed thanks to the support of a local militia.

The Russian command in Syria ordered an operation to repel the militants’ assault, including airstrikes and a ground offensive conducted by the military police and special operations forces, General Sergey Rudskoy, spokesman for the Russian General Staff, added in the statement.

The Russian unit was successfully rescued. Three troops from the special operations forces were injured, but the Russian forces suffered no fatalities, Rudskoy said.

The General Staff said the jihadist offensive had been stopped. The militants’ estimated losses include some 850 fighters, 11 tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles, 46 armed pickup trucks, five mortars, 20 freighter trucks and 38 ammo supply points.

The statement says Syrian government forces supported by Russian warplanes launched a counteroffensive and recaptured territories previously seized by the jihadists.</s>Russian warplanes and Syrian forces have repelled an offensive by jihadists in a de-escalation zone in Idlib governorate in Syria. The forces killed some 850 militants and destroyed 11 tanks and other assets, Russia's General Staff reported.The offensive was launched by the militant group formerly called Al-Nusra Front and its allies on Tuesday morning, a statement from the General Staff said.The report accused US security services of instigating the offensive, which, the statement said, is meant to derail the successful operation of Damascus forces east of Deir ez-Zor.The Russian command in Syria ordered an operation to repel the militants' assault, including airstrikes and a ground offensive conducted by the military police and special operations forces, General Sergey Rudskoy, spokesman for the Russian General Staff, added in the statement.The General Staff said the jihadist offensive had been stopped. The militants' estimated losses include some 850 fighters, 11 tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles, 46 armed pickup trucks, five mortars, 20 freighter trucks and 38 ammo supply points.The statement says Syrian government forces supported by Russian warplanes launched a counteroffensive and recaptured territories previously seized by the jihadists.</s>Al-Nusra Front terrorists used tanks and infantry fighting vehicles during their offensive in the Idlib de-escalation zone, the Russian General Staff said on Wednesday.

“Despite agreements signed on September 15 in Astana, al-Nusra Front terrorists and allied militants, who doe not want to uphold ceasefire, launched a strong offensive on the positions of the government troops on September 19 to the north and north-east of the city of Hama in the Idlib de-escalation zone,” the General Staff’s statement said.

The militants’ attack was “initiated by US secret services to stop the successful advance of the government troops to the east of Deir ez-Zor,” it adds.

A Russian military police unit of 29 personnel was encircled as the militants sought to capture it and was repelling the attacks for several hours together with a local tribe that had signed a ceasefire agreement. A group of Russian Spetsnaz and Syrian special operations forces came to the rescue, backed by Su-25 strike fighters. The military police unit broke the siege and left the area. Three servicemen were wounded.

The Syrian Army, supported bu Russian warplanes, launched a counter-attack and have almost completely reclaimed their positions in the Idlib de-escalation zone.</s>There were conflicting accounts of how many hospitals came under attack or how many people died.

Activist group Idlib Media Center said strikes knocked out service at Al-Rahma Hospital in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, Orient Hospital in Kafr Nabl and an obstetrics hospital in Al-Tah village, and that three nurses were killed in another hospital in Al-Tah, which remained operational.

But Mustafa al-Haj Yusuf, director of the Idlib branch of the Syria Civil Defense, better known as the White Helmets, told CNN that one nurse was killed in airstrikes on three hospitals. Two of the group's headquarters and a team in the field were also hit, Yusuf added.

Tuesday marked the first deadly airstrikes in Idlib in months, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It wasn't immediately clear who conducted the strikes, though only Russian and Syrian regime aircraft have been bombing those areas of Idlib province. Al-Rahma Hospital was previously targeted in April, as it received casualties from a deadly chemical-weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun The attacks come one day after the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented its latest report on the civil war to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The commission stated that, despite tenuous progress on de-escalation in some parts of Syria, civilians continue to suffer from wide-ranging human-rights violations and abuse. "Many of those displaced from areas previously besieged by pro-government forces are now in Idlib, where they face difficulties accessing humanitarian assistance," Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the inquiry, said in a statement Burning vehicles are seen under the debris of Al-Rahma Hospital. Pinheiro is one of only two remaining commissioners on the inquiry, after veteran prosecutor Carla del Ponte resigned from the investigation on Monday. Before quitting the council, del Ponte told Syria's ambassador she had been right to believe that Assad's government was responsible for the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun. "I said that in my opinion and based on the elements we already had, the Syrian government was responsible. Today we have the confirmation after an official commission's inquiry. So now, we ask for justice, we ask justice for those victims," del Ponte said, according to Reuters</s>The footage shows armed vehicles being ripped apart by missiles raining down on them by Russian strike fighters and helicopter gunships just as the Syrian Army launched a massive counterattack forcing the jihadists into a retreat.

The al-Nusra Front terrorists used artillery, tanks and infantry fighting vehicles during their offensive to the north and northeast of the city of Hama in the Idlib de-escalation zone penetrating Syrian army defenses to a depth of some 12 kilometers (8 miles).

A 29-person strong Russian military police unit was encircled and repelled the terrorists’ attacks for several hours fighting alongside members of an allied local tribe until Russian Spetsnaz and Syrian Special Ops units, backed by the Su-25 strike fighters, came to the rescue breaking the enemy siege.

The terrorist offensive has largely been stopped, leaving 850 militants dead and 11 tanks, four armored vehicles and other military hardware completely destroyed.

The Syrian Army, supported by Russian warplanes, launched a counterattack and has almost completely reclaimed its positions in the Idlib de-escalation zone.</s>The attack from a submerged position came in the wake of an al-Nusra Front terrorist offensive in the Idlib Province where a Russian military police unit was surrounded.

"The missile strike destroyed important command centers, training bases and armored vehicles of the terrorists who tried to capture 29 Russian military policemen in the north of the Hama Province," the ministry's statement said. "The targets included strongholds, militants and armored vehicles, as well as ammunition depots belonging to al-Nusra Front in the Idlib Province. The distance of the strike was nearly 300 kilometers."

Reconnaissance confirmed the successful destruction of all targets.

After the attack in Idlib was repelled, the Syrian Army, supported by Russian warplanes, launched a counterattack and almost completely reclaimed their positions in the de-escalation zone. Three servicemen were wounded in the attack. According to the Russian military, a total of 187 terrorist targets were hit by airstrikes and artillery fire and about 850 terrorists were destroyed.</s>The recent advances by the Syrian Army and its allies, in particular in Deir ez-Zor, have become a serious concern for the Pentagon and triggered counteractions by terrorist groups, according to Araik Stepanyan, executive secretary of the Academy for Geopolitical Problems.

"Our so-called American partners are nervous. There is almost no secret that Washington controls both Daesh and al-Nusra Front. Moreover, the US provides arms to the so-called moderate opposition in Syria. As a result, such weird things are happening. They are authorized by the Americans," Stepanyan told Radio Sputnik, referring to the incident that took place earlier this week in the de-escalation zone in Idlib.

A Russian military police unit numbering 29 personnel was encircled and repelled the terrorists’ attacks for several hours until Russian Spetsnaz and Syrian Special Ops units, backed by Su-25 strike fighters, came to the rescue breaking the enemy siege.

Commenting on the statement, Russian political analyst Mikhail Smolin said that the Russian military is trustworthy in this situation.

"In fact, Russia and the US don’t have common goals in Syria. The mission of the Americans and their allies is not over yet. Their plan is to oust [Syrian President Bashar] Assad. The goal of the US military is to consolidate anti-Assad forces," Smolin said in an interview with Radio Sputnik.

Elaborating further, the expert pointed to the fact that the tactic used by the Pentagon and its allied groups resembles "guerilla warfare" because the attack was directed against a separate military police unit.

"They [the Americans] have done that before. Apparently, their goal is to increase the number of such incidents. Possibly, they want to make the situation look like the Russian units in Syria are not capable enough of countering serious attacks. However, this time the plan didn’t work out," Smolin said.

After the attack in Idlib was repelled, the Syrian Army, supported by Russian warplanes, launched a counterattack and almost completely reclaimed their positions in the de-escalation zone. Three servicemen were wounded in the attack. According to the Russian military, a total of 187 terrorist targets were hit by airstrikes and artillery fire and about 850 terrorists were destroyed.</s>War monitor says Syrian and Russian jets struck four facilities, including maternity hospital, in retaliatory assault.

At least four hospitals have been targeted by air strikes in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, killing three people and wounding several, according to a war monitor and rescue teams.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said Syrian government and Russian warplanes conducted the air attack on Tuesday in the countryside of Hama and Idlib.

The attacks came after opposition factions led by a former al-Qaeda affiliate launched an assault on a number of government-held villages along the border between Idlib and Hama.

The raids hit a maternity hospital in the village of al-Tah and a medical outpost in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, as well as near two other hospitals in Idlib province, Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"The raids on the maternity hospital in al-Tah killed an elderly woman who was an employee of the hospital, in the first civilian death in air strikes in Idlib province since May," he said.

According to the medical charity UOSSM, which has provided equipment to the maternity hospital, the woman killed was a cleaner in the facility and other medical staff were wounded.

In a statement distributed to journalists, the charity said two sets of strikes hit the maternity hospital, setting fuel-storage tanks on fire and leaving its incubator room "totally destroyed".

The Syrian government-affiliated Central Military Media outlet acknowledged the opposition offensive just south of Idlib and said forces responded with intensive airstrikes and shelling, killing a number of fighters.

UOSSM condemned the strikes and said that "systematic attacks on hospitals are back despite de-escalation deals".

Idlib is mainly controlled by Hayet Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance of anti-government groups formed in January and linked to al-Qaeda.

It is led by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

READ MORE: Seven White Helmets medics killed in Syria's Idlib

The SOHR said the air strikes were in retaliation for the killing of 19 soldiers when Hayet Tahrir al-Sham launched an attack on government forces in the northern Hama countryside.

The fighting comes just days after Iran, Russia and Turkey announced they would jointly police the de-escalation zone in Idlib and parts of adjacent Hama and Latakia provinces.

Russia has already deployed military police to the other three de-escalation zones - Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, parts of the south and some areas of the central province of Homs.

The agreement excludes the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and Hayet Tahrir al-Sham.</s>"Despite agreements signed on September 15 in Astana, al-Nusra Front terrorists and allied militants, who do not want to uphold a cease-fire, launched a strong offensive on the positions of the government troops on September 19 to the north and northeast of the city of Hama in the Idlib de-escalation zone," the General Staff's statement said.

The militants' attack was "initiated by US secret services to stop the successful advance of the government troops to the east of Deir ez-Zor," it adds. The militants managed to penetrate Syrian army defenses to the depth of some 12 kilometers.

"In general, as a result of measures undertaken by the Russian command and the Syrian general staff, the terrorist offensive was stopped, and they suffered significant damage," the chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy said.

A Russian military police unit of 29 personnel was encircled as the militants sought to capture it and was repelling the attacks for several hours together with a local tribe that had signed a cease-fire agreement. A group of Russian Spetsnaz and Syrian special operations forces came to the rescue, backed by Su-25 strike fighters. The military police unit broke the siege and left the area. Three servicemen were wounded.

The Syrian Army, supported by Russian warplanes, launched a counterattack and have almost completely reclaimed their positions in the Idlib de-escalation zone. The operation to destroy terrorists will continue, the General Staff said.

"A total of 187 terrorist targets were hit by air strikes and artillery fire, about 850 terrorists, 11 tanks, 4 infantry fighting vehicles, 46 pick-up trucks, 5 mortars, and 38 weapons depots were destroyed," Rudskoy added.
Russian and Syrian warplanes carry out airstrikes in southern Idlib, killing three civilians and wounding others.