Three civilians were killed by artillery fire by Damascus regime forces on a community in northwestern Syria controlled by jihadists, the non-governmental Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

An AFP journalist in northwest Syria reported that artillery fire was exchanged between the army and the jihadist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former arm of al-Qaeda in Syria, in Idlib and Aleppo provinces respectively.

“Three civilians, including a child, were killed and two others were wounded by government forces’ artillery fire in Kafr Nouran, in the western part of Aleppo province,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Residents of the village of Kafr Nuran told an AFP reporter that the blast was launched as residents were on the street, some to buy watermelons.

The house was damaged by the impact, the journalist found.

Yesterday morning, a member of the regime forces was killed by HTS fire in the eastern part of Idlib province, according to the NGO, which is based in Britain and relies on a wide network of sources in Syria.

Roughly half of Idlib province and areas in neighboring provinces – in Hama, Aleppo and Lattakia – are under the control of HTS and less powerful jihadist and rebel groups.

A ceasefire agreement negotiated by Turkey, a country that supports some rebel organizations, and Russia, a protégé of Damascus, in 2020, following an attack by the Syrian regime, applies in the region.

Despite its frequent violations, this ceasefire is generally respected.

Russia, which intervened militarily in the country in 2015, is considered the main backer of the Bashar al-Assad regime, along with Iran.

The highly complex war in Syria, which was triggered by the bloody crackdown on protests demanding the country’s democratization in 2011, has claimed the lives of more than half a million people, turned millions more into internally displaced persons and refugees, and caused a huge economic and humanitarian crisis. .