By Burak Karacaoglu and Esref Musa</p> <p>IDLIB, Syria (AA) – Regime shelling and Russian airstrikes killed 15 civilians in Syria’s Idlib, the White Helmets civil-defense agency said Thursday. </p> <p>Along with regime artillery barrages, Russian SU-34 warplanes struck central Idlib and its rural outskirts, leaving 15 dead, including eight children, the White Helmets said.</p> <p>Regime attacks in Idlib’s de-escalation zone, in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited, are believed to have killed at least 138 civilians since Jan. 1.</p> <p>Last September, Ankara and Moscow agreed to turn Idlib into a demilitarized zone following a meeting in Russia's coastal city of Sochi between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.</p> <p>Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected severity.
- Writing by Maimaitiming Yilixiati
