By Khaled Suleiman and Adham Kaku

IDLIB, Syria

At least seven civilians were killed in a Russian airstrike in Syria's northwestern Idlib province on Sunday, according to a local civil defense official.

A Russian warplane struck a residential area in Jisr al-Shughour city in the province, Mustafa al-Ahmad told Anadolu Agency.

He said many houses were destroyed in the attack.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

This led to a military conflict between the Syrian opposition groups and the Assad regime over the war-torn country’s territory.

Iran has been supporting the Assad regime during the war while Russia intervened in September 2015.

Peace talks were launched in Geneva in 2012 aiming to find a political solution to the conflict while talks began in the Kazakh capital Astana this year for reaching a ceasefire that has been fragile so far. 

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict mainly by regime airstrikes on opposition-held areas while millions more were displaced.

During the conflict, the Assad regime was accused by many international actors of targeting Syrian civilians by chemical weapons.