Russian missile strike kills four children in Syria

Seven civillians were confirmed dead in the strike

Civil defence group members and citizens carry out rescue works in the wreckage of the buildings destroyed after Russian attack (Anadolu Agency/Getty)

A Russian warplane has struck a house in north-western Syria near the Turkish border, killing seven civilians including four children, according to a monitoring group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and opposition media outlet Orient TV said the air strike in Idlib’s town of Jisr al-Shoghour was carried out by a Russian plane after four other strikes in a town further north.

Syrian Civil Defence volunteers rushed to the house to remove the bodies from the rubble.

The White Helmets rescue group gave the same figures and said another dozen people, among them eight children, had been wounded in the strikes.

Russia has been carrying out air strikes in Syria since 2015, helping its ally President Bashar al-Assad reclaim territory from rebels and extremist groups.

The strikes had become increasingly rare in recent months, the war monitoring group said.

The north-western region of Syria is home to the country's last rebel enclave. The province of Idlib is under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an al Qaida-linked group, while northern Aleppo province is under the control of Turkish-backed rebel groups.

The strike occurred near the Turkish border (AP)

More than 90 per cent of the population in that area live in extreme poverty, relying on humanitarian aid to survive. The Syrian government in Damascus, alongside key ally Russia, frequently launches air strikes in the area.

Turkey has warned it intends to launch a new military operation targeting the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in north-western Syria. Ankara says the Kurdish-led forces pose a security threat and it deems them a terrorist group.

It comes as Russia’s offensive in Ukraine intensifies. The Kremlin defence ministry said on Friday its forces had destroyed four US-supplied HIMARS rocket systems between 5-20 July.

“Four launchers and one transport-loading vehicle for the U.S.-made multiple launch rocket systems (HIMARS) were destroyed,” it said in a daily briefing.

While British military intelligence said on Friday Russia has increased its use of air defence missiles in a secondary ground attack mode because of critical shortages of dedicated ground-attack missiles