Air attacks kill 4 in Syria's Idlib

DAMASCUS/IDLIB, Syria

At least four people were killed and 11 others injured in airstrikes reportedly carried out by the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, local civil defense sources said Friday.

A civil defense official in Idlib, Leys el-Faris, told Anadolu Agency four civilians were killed and seven others injured in an airstrike which hit the Sermin district.

According to Faris, a number of residential areas were destroyed in the attack.

A mosque north of Hama city in west-central Syria was also destroyed, he added. “The regime is intensively attacking rural areas in Idlib and Hama with its allies,” he said.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Yusuf el-Bustani, a local activist, said regime forces were attacking the opposition-controlled Qaboun neighborhood of the capital Damascus.

Bustani said four civilians had been injured in the attack. He added local people had difficulties in meeting basic needs due to regime forces’ attack in East Ghouta.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Several rounds of peace talks -- in Geneva and the Kazakh capital Astana -- have so far failed to end the conflict, in which hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians are believed to have been killed to date.

*Reporting by Halit Suleyman; Writing by Handan Kazanci