Russian-backed regime forces seized several towns and villages in northwest Syria Thursday, as deadly air strikes hit the jihadist-held bastion, a monitor said. Seven civilians died in air strikes in the south of the stronghold, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, a day after regime air strikes killed 12 others — including six children — in a town. Eight years into Syria’s war, the Idlib region of some three million people is one of the last holdouts of opposition to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
