At least five civilians were killed in Syrian army shelling of a village in a rebel-held area of northwestern Syria, activists and emergency workers said. Strikes on the north-west by the army and Russia, President Bashar Al Assad’s most powerful ally in Syria’s civil war, have risen in recent months as the armed opposition consolidated its grip on the area. The area has remained an active front-line in the conflict although Russia’s intervention in 2015 has allowed Mr Al Assad’s loyalists to recapture large swathes of the country.
