Al Jazeera team survives air strike in Syria’s Idlib

An Al Jazeera team in Syria has narrowly survived a suspected Russian air strike as the crew was covering the aftermath of previous air raids in the northern suburbs of Idlib.

The journalists were not hurt in Saturday’s attack, but a member of a local rescue team was killed and another one was injured.

Al Jazeera’s Adham Abu Husam said the crew were in the town of Ihsim reporting on the casualties and destruction caused by two air strikes on the area.

A third strike hit as the team arrived and the rescuers were evacuating the dead.

The attack came amid accusations by Western officials and activists on the ground that many civilians have been killed in the Russian strikes. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in the UK, said on Saturday that at least 39 civilians and 14 fighters were killed in four days of Russian air strikes.

Russia said the aerial campaign – which began on Wednesday – was aimed against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and other “terrorist organisations”.

Its jets hit areas in the suburbs of Hama, Idlib and Latakia, areas under the control of loose rebel groups, including the western-backed Free Syrian Army. These areas have no ISIL presence.

The United States and its allies have condemned Russia, accusing it of seeking to buttress Assad under cover of a claimed assault on ISIL.

The Russian foreign ministry said its planes have flown 20 sorties in Syria and struck 10 ISIL targets.

It released a video on Saturday showing what it said was a Su-34 destroying an ISIL command centre near Raqqa, ISIL’s self-declared capital, using concrete-piercing bombs.