Children fleeing pro-Assad bombing of Idlib Province, northwest Syria, May 2019

Pro-opposition activists have described Russian-regime “carpet bombing” of northwest Syria, with an offensive to take part of the last major opposition area in its second week.

The village of Habit in northwest Hama Province (see map) was under constant attack on Sunday. It is the next target of the pro-Assad ground assault, after the towns of Kafr Naboudeh and Qalaat al-Mudiq fell last week.

Regime forces, supposed by Russian mercenaries, are also trying to break through at Karkat at the foot of the al-Zawiyah Mountains.

After months of escalating regime bombardment and Russian airstrikes across Idlib and northern Hama, the offensive was launched on May 6. It pushed aside the demilitarized zone declared last September by Russia and Turkey, suspending an imminent Russian-regime assault to overrun the last major opposition area in Syria.

More than 150 civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded in the last two weeks by the Russian-regime bombardment. At least 350,000 have been displaced since September.

Ammar Alzeer posted photos on Sunday of the displaced living under trees near Atmeh in northwest Idlib Province, as camps on the Turkish border are well beyond capacity.

An estimated three million people — about 20% of Syria’s remaining population — live in Idlib and northern Hama.

Turkish Observation Post Attacked

Both opposition and pro-Assad activists said regime forces fired on one of 12 Turkish observation posts around the opposition area.

Several shells were launched on the post north of Qal’at Al-Madiq on Sunday, as Turkish-backed rebels fired rockets on the town seized by the pro-Assad offensive.

Turkey has had military forces alongside rebels in the northwest since August 2016. It was silent about the shattering of the demilitarized zone until last Friday, when Defense Minister Hulusi Akar called on Russia to restrain the regime.

But Ankara has taken no action to check the air and ground assaults, and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — who met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in early April — has issued no statement.

Report: Civilians Killed in Regime-Held Hama

Pro-Assad sites reported Sunday that five children and a woman were killed by a rocket fired by the hardline jihadist bloc Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham on a regime-held town.

The sites said the rocket struck a schoolyard in al-Suqaylabiyah in northern Hama, seriously wounding several other people.

As Russia and the regime have broken the demilitarized zone in the northwest, HTS have responded with attacks on regime positions.

Suqaylabiyah is home to one of the Assad regime’s largest National Defense Forces militia.