12 children die as Assad steps up assault on rebels

A DOZEN children were among at least 39 civilians killed in an explosion at a weapons depot in the last major rebel stronghold in Syria yesterday.

The huge blast caused two buildings to collapse at the site in Sarmada in Idlib province near the Turkish border.

One rescue worker was seen carrying the motionless body of a small child to an ambulance, with women also among the dead. Regime forces have stepped up their deadly bombardment of southern Idlib in recent days, and sent reinforcements to nearby areas they control.

President Bashar al-Assad has warned he intends to retake Idlib, after his Russiabacked regime regained control of swathes of rebel-held territory elsewhere. There are concerns for the millions of civilians trapped among Syria’s most hardline jihadists, facing an onslaught by Assad’s forces.

Idlib, controlled by Islamist rebels and alQaeda-linked fighters, is the final refuge for more than two million displaced civilians.

The Russian and Syrian military stepped up airstrikes and artillery fire on Friday in what was said to be the opening salvo of a campaign to retake the province. The conquest of Idlib is considered one of the final acts of a civil war that has lasted seven years, with more than 350,000 dead.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, said the civilian death toll from the Sarmada explosion had been revised up as more bodies were pulled from the rubble.

Rescue workers pulled out ‘five people who were still alive’, according to a civil defence source.