Syrian army shelling kills at least five civilians in Idlib

The dead included an elderly woman and four of her children

People pray over the bodies of an elderly woman and four of her children killed during an overnight bombardment by Syrian regime forces on the outskirts of Kfar Nuran in the rebel-held part of the western province of Aleppo. AFPShow less

At least five civilians were killed on Thursday in Syrian army shelling of a village in a rebel-held area of northwestern Syria, activists and emergency workers said.

Strikes on the north-west by the army and Russia, President Bashar Al Assad's most powerful ally in Syria's civil war, have risen in recent months as the armed opposition consolidated its grip on the area.

The area has remained an active front-line in the conflict although Russia's intervention in 2015 has allowed Mr Al Assad's loyalists to recapture large swathes of the country.

The shelling on Thursday hit a family house on the outskirts of the village of Kafr Nouran in Aleppo governorate, an independent civil defence organisation known as the White Helmets told Associated Press.

The dead included an elderly woman and three of her daughters and her son, said the Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Nine other family members were injured, it said.

Neither Syria nor Russia commented on the shelling, but Damascus has portrayed all of its military operations throughout the civil war as a defence against terrorism.

The Syrian pro-government newspaper Al Watan said the Syrian army had targeted the al Qaeda-linked militant group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) in response to its shelling of government positions in southern Idlib, the governorate neighbouring Aleppo.

The White Helmets said Syrian government strikes increased in the past week, including shelling in the city of Sarmeen on Tuesday that hit a school and mosque, killing at least six people. The first responders also said that shelling also hit a house and farmland in Binnish, near Idlib city, but did not cite any casualties.

North-western Syria, home to 4 million people, most of whom were displaced from other parts of Syria, is mostly held by HTS and a Turkish-backed militia called the Syrian National Army.

The civil war started at the end of 2011 after the authorities used violence to crush a peaceful protest movement against Mr Al Assad, who has ruled since 2000.