ARMANAZ: Russian air strikes on the last major armed opposition stronghold in Syria killed five civilians from the same family, including three children, rescuers and a war monitor said on Tuesday.

“On December 25 at 10:00am (0700 GMT) Russian warplanes targeted civilian houses” on the outskirts of the town of Armanaz, in Idlib province, said Abdel Halim Shehab of the White Helmets voluntary search-and-rescue group.

Members of the White Helmets, which operates in rebel-held areas of northern Syria, pulled the victims from under the rubble of their house, he said.

“The victims were from the same family of six: five of them were killed and a child survived,” he said, identifying the dead as the father, mother and three of their children.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor with a network of sources across the war-torn country, also said Russia carried out the strikes.

The Britain-based organisation reported the same toll of five dead and said the family’s house was located on farmland near Armanaz.

On Tuesday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the army had downed and destroyed “eight terrorist drones in Idlib and Aleppo provinces”.

Citing the defence ministry, it said forces responded to attempts to attack villages, towns and “military points”.

On Sunday, Syria’s defence ministry said its forces had shot down seven drones launched by “terrorist organisations” in Hama and Aleppo provinces. Russia’s intervention in the war since 2015 has helped Assad’s forces claw back much of the territory they lost to rebels. Since 2020, a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia and Turkiye has largely held.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2023