Nine people were killed Tuesday in a regime airstrike in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, a pro-opposition civil defense official said.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Omar Ulwan said that Assad regime warplanes had struck a residential area in Idlib’s town of Khan Shaykhun, leaving nine people dead.

Casualties, he said, included seven children and two women.

Ulwan went on to note that several other civilians had been injured the same day by regime and Russian airstrikes in Idlib’s town of Binnish.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and millions more displaced.