Russia strikes kill 78 rebels in Syria

Air strikes by Syrian regime ally Russia killed 78 fighters from a Turkey-backed rebel group in northwest Syria yesterday, a Britain-based war monitor said. 

Russian warplanes also wounded 100 people when they targeted a training camp of the Faylaq al-Sham faction in the Jabal Duwayli area in Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In March, a fragile truce brokered between Moscow and Ankara stemmed a deadly months-long Russia-backed regime military offensive on the country's last major rebel stronghold in Idlib.

The National Liberation Front, an umbrella group of Ankara-backed rebels, told AFP that Russian strikes yesterday had hit one of its positions, but did not give an exact death toll.

The March truce has largely held with the exception of some bombardment and intermittent air strikes on the area, according to the Observatory.