Agencies, Beirut :At least 40 people were killed and scores wounded on Sunday in a suspected Russian air strike on a crowded marketplace in Idlib province, activists said. The early morning attack occurred in the town of Ariha, 15km south of Idlib city. Local news channel Ariha al-Youm reported cluster bombs were used in the raid by a Russian fighter jet. The pro-opposition Orient TV also reported an initial death toll of 40. However, Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, put the death toll much higher, saying at least 60 people were killed and wounded in the attack.Officials at the Russian defence ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.The Russian air force has conducted air strikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad since September 30.Ariha is located in Idlib province, which is controlled by rebel groups including the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.The province is not a stronghold of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group that controls wide areas of eastern Syria.The Syrian military withdrew from Ariha in May as an alliance of rebel groups – including Nusra Front – advanced in Idlib in an offensive that resulted in the entire province falling into rebel hands.Meanwhile, a Russian warplane recently entered Israeli-controlled airspace from Syria but the intrusion was resolved without incident, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Sunday.Yaalon’s comments come amid deep concern over the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey, which claims it strayed over the Syrian border into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings to change course. Moscow denies the allegations.”There was a slight intrusion a mile (1.6 kilometres) deep by a Russian plane from Syria into our airspace, but it was immediately resolved and the Russian plane returned towards Syria,” Yaalon told public radio. “It was apparently an error by the pilot who was flying near the Golan.”Israel seized most of the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and later annexed the territory in a move never recognised by the international community.Yaalon recalled that Israel and Russia had made arrangements to avoid clashes over Syria, with the agreement said to include a “hotline” and information sharing.He said “Russian planes do not intend to attack us, which is why we must not automatically react and shoot them down when an error occurs.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow in September to discuss ways of avoiding accidental clashes.Russia launched a bombing campaign in Syria on September 30 at the request of its longstanding ally Bashar al-Assad that Moscow says is targeting Islamic State jihadists and other “terrorist” groups.
