Russian jets bombed areas near the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib on Sunday, witnesses and opposition sources said, marking a new year flare-up for the last opposition-held bastion.
Warplanes flying at high altitude, which tracking centers said were Russian Sukhoi jets, dropped bombs on several towns and a water pumping station serving the overcrowded city of Idlib, whose wider population is more than a million.
No immediate comment was available from Russia or the Syrian army, which says it targets the hideouts of militant groups who control the region but deny any attacks on civilians.
An official at the city's water utility service said it was out of action as a result of the strikes, Reuters reported.
Witnesses said the strikes in the last twenty four hours in the opposition-held enclave also hit livestock and poultry farms close to the Bab al Hawa border crossing with Turkey.
"The Russians are focusing on infrastructure and economic assets. This is to add to the suffering of people," Abu Hazem Idlibi, an official in the opposition administration, said.
Other targets included villages in the Jabal al-Zawiya region in the southern part of Idlib province, with no immediate reports of casualties, residents and rescuers said.
A series of raids after midnight on Saturday hit makeshift camps that house thousands of displaced families near Jisr al Shuqhur, west of Idlib. Two children and a woman were killed and 10 civilians wounded, the civil defense service said.
There has been a relative lull in airstrikes since November after a renewed Russian-led campaign followed by Turkish army reinforcements inside the enclave raised the prospect of a wider resumption of violence.
