More families fleeing airstrikes in Syria

CAIRO — Syrian government forces and allied Russians stepped up their air attacks on the opposition’s last major stronghold of Idlib and neighboring areas, forcing more people out of the province, a war monitor reported Sunday.

It is expected that Syrian President Bashar Assad, supported by Russia, will soon launch a final offensive on Idlib, which has been under the rebels’ control since 2015.

Russian jets Sunday carried out 14 successive air raids in the rebel town of Latamneh in the northern part of Hama province that borders Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Government helicopters, meanwhile, dropped at least 63 barrels packed with explosives on areas in Idlib and Hama, the fiercest such bombing in weeks, the observatory said.

At least one child was killed and six other civilians injured in Idlib’s southern village of Hobeit by the barrel bombing, the observatory said.

A hospital in Latamneh was also knocked out of service as a result of airstrikes and shelling.

The latest attacks have forced dozens of families to leave the targeted rebel areas in Idlib and Hama for safer areas, according to the Britain-based monitor.

Syria’s state news agency SANA reported that the army mounted intense shelling strikes against militants mainly from an al-Qaida-linked group in the northern section of Hama.

An unspecified number of “terrorists” were killed or injured in the strikes that also destroyed rocket launchers, SANA reported.

SANA did not mention attacks in Idlib.

AP This photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, shows civilians and civil defense workers at the site of a destroyed building that was hit by a Syrian government airstrike Sunday in Hobeit village, near Idlib, Syria.