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Airstrike destroys MSF-supported clinic in northern Syria

Russian Federation says the “cessation” does not apply to its air strikes, which have shifted the balance of power toward Syrian President Bashar Assad.

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Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the missiles were launched by a Russian warship. “I do not believe that that understanding has sunk in”.

“Only few days ago all of us, including Turkey, sitting around the table decided steps to de-escalate and have a cessation of hostilities, cessation of hostility”, she said.

The shelling killed at least two children in the area on Monday, the Observatory said.

United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Monday that victims of the attacks included children. If they approach again they will see the harshest reaction.

“We have been moving scores of screaming children from the hospital”, said medic Juma Rahal. The ground offensive has been focused on the northern province of Aleppo while Monday’s airstrike struck the clinic in the nearby Idlib province.

“We will not let Azaz fall”. A school where refugees were staying and a refugee shelter to the south were also reportedly hit.

In October, an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan was hit by U.S. forces by mistake leaving 42 people dead.

The medical charity said eight members of staff were missing after the attack in Maarat al-Numan, but it did not identify who was responsible.

Echoing Obama’s concerns, a senior figure in the Syrian opposition criticized the truce deal as unworkable without an end to Russian strikes.

Separately, the Turkish armed forces said one of its soldier was killed on Sunday evening in a border clash with a group seeking to enter Turkey illegally, Reuters reported.

 The increase in fighting in Aleppo Province where pro-government forces backed by Russian airstrikes have made significant gains has led to renewed accusations by rebel forces that Syrian Kurds are cooperating with the Syrian military against them.

Davutoglu said Turkey would make the Menagh air base north of the city of Aleppo “unusable” if the YPG, which seized it over the weekend from Syrian insurgents, did not withdraw. “We have also seen reports of artillery fire from the Turkish side of the border and urged Turkey to cease such fire”.

European Union officials are calling on Turkey to halt its military action in Syria in the hope of implementing a plan to cease hostilities.

The Observatory says the dead include three children and a pregnant woman.

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Ankara accuses the YPG of being the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, and it fears Syrian Kurds are seeking to carve out an autonomous Kurdish region on Turkey’s border.

Smoke billows from a fire at the southeastern town of Nusaybin Turkey near the border with Syria where Turkish security forces are battling militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK Sunday