Attacks come after repeated violations of a truce reached in March final yr.
Syrian authorities artillery shells struck a rebel-held city near the border with Turkey on Saturday, killing 4 folks and wounding greater than a dozen.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated three policemen, whose station acquired a direct hit, have been among the many victims of the assault within the city of Sarmada, in Idlib governorate. At least 17 folks have been wounded.
The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defence, often known as White Helmets, stated the shelling was concentrated in town and a street linking it with the border crossing level of Bab al-Hawa with Turkey. The Civil Defence stated 4 folks have been killed however gave a better variety of wounded, 23.
The shelling comes amid growing tensions within the final insurgent stronghold in Syria’s northwest, the place a truce reached in March final yr has been repeatedly violated in current weeks.
The truce, negotiated between Turkey – which sides with Syria’s opposition – and Russia – the Syrian authorities’s fundamental backer – ended a crushing authorities offensive on northwestern Syria.
The battle monitor stated the assault was claimed by a gaggle often called Supporters of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Company, an armed group that has claimed earlier assaults on Turkish forces.
The space is the final insurgent enclave within the nation and is home to lots of of 1000’s of displaced folks.
Syria’s authorities has pledged to revive management over the territory misplaced throughout the 10-year battle, which started in March 2011.
The military stepped up its bombing of the northwestern enclave when President Bashar al-Assad took the oath of workplace for a brand new time period on July 17.
As al-Assad took the oath and pledged to make “liberating those parts of the homeland that still need to be” one in all his high priorities, assaults on the Idlib villages of Sarja and Ehsin killed 14 civilians, seven of them kids.
The following week, Syrian authorities artillery shells struck the village of Ibleen, killing seven members of the identical household, together with 4 kids.