Latest clashes in Syria lead to more than 60 dead
Clashes between Syrian regime forces and armed groups in the country’s last major opposition bastion have killed more than 60 on both sides in the past 24 hours despite UN calls for de-escalation, a war monitoring group said on Friday.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 38 jihadists and allied rebels had been killed in battles with regime forces in the northwestern province of Idlib since Thursday night.
The Observatory said fighting near the militants-held town of Maaret al-Numan also killed 23 Syrian regime loyalists.
Russian warplanes, meanwhile, pounded areas around Maaret al-Numan and the nearby town of Saraqib with a series of air strikes, according to the war monitor.
The flare-up triggered a wave of displacement from nearby areas, said an AFP correspondent there.
The United Nations this week condemned a deadly rise in violence in the area after the Observatory reported that regime air strikes and artillery fire had killed 23 civilians on Tuesday.
