BEIRUT (AP) - Airstrikes have targeted rural Aleppo in northern Syria Sunday for the first time in months since a cease-fire took hold in the province, activists and a war monitoring group said.
Meanwhile, Syrian media reported that government and allied troops have seized Maadan, a town north of Deir el-Zour city and south of Raqqa, which has been scene to intense fighting with Islamic State militants. State TV al-Ikhbariya filmed from inside the town, showing plumes of black smoke rising into the sky. The TV reporter said the town, which links the militant group's two strongholds now under attack, served as a key station for IS oil transport and distribution. The report hailed the capture of the town a day earlier as a major victory for the pro-government troops, saying they have now rid the western bank of the Euphrates river of the militant group and secured the road from Deir el-Zour to Aleppo.
Seizing Maadan comes amid a government offensive advancing on Deir el-Zour city. The capture of Maadan, 70 km (43 miles) west of Deir el-Zour, also brings the pro-Syrian forces closer to Raqqa city, where the U.S.-led coalition is backing a campaign against IS.
Elsewhere, warplanes continued Sunday to pound Syria's rural Idlib and Hama, where insurgents led by an al-Qaida-linked group began an offensive against government troops in the area. There was no immediate word on casualties in Sunday's bombings. But the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 40 insurgents were killed in airstrikes Saturday on a village in northern Idlib. Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Observatory, said the airstrikes targeted a base in Mardkih that belongs to Faylaq al-Sham, a fighting group that had agreed to the cease-fire, killing at least 45. The group posted a video a day before the airstrike showing its fighters preparing a mortar attack on government areas north of Hirbnafsah in Hama.
The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said its rescuers came under attack Saturday from airstrikes as they were carrying out search and rescue operations in Mardikh. A video posted online by the group shows one of their volunteers injured in the attack.
A "de-escalation" deal reached in May has dramatically reduced the violence in most of Syria. Al-Qaida-linked militants launched an offensive earlier this week against government forces in northern Hama, prompting an intense Russia-backed aerial campaign against Hama and Idlib. Sunday's airstrikes in Aleppo appeared to have targeted Faylaq al-Sham bases in the province, according to Abdurrahman.