BEIRUT: Airstrikes have targeted rural Aleppo in northern Syria Sunday for the first time in months since a cease-fire took hold in the province, while the aerial bombardment of rebel-held Idlib and Hama province escalated.

Also Sunday, Russia's Defense Ministry reporetd that Lt. Gen. Valery Asapov was killed By daesh shelling in Syria.

Meanwhile, Syrian media reported that government and allied troops have seized Maadan, a town north of the city of Deir al-Zor and south of Raqqa that has been the scene of intense fighting with Daesh militants.

State TV Al-Ikhbariya reporter said the town, which links the militant group’s two strongholds now under attack, served as a key station for Daesh 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 al-Zor to Aleppo.

Seizing Maadan comes amid a government offensive advancing on Deir al-Zor city. The capture of Maadan also brings the pro-Syrian forces closer to Raqqa city, where the U.S.-led coalition is backing a campaign against Daesh.

The Syrian army had recaptured 44 towns and farms in Deir al-Zor, Hama and Raqqa countrysides in the past two weeks, the Hezbollah-linked War Media Center said, quoting a military source.

In Homs eastern countryside, meanwhile, the army seized a string of towns and villages including Al-Maramiya, Rasm Sweid, Talet Rajm al-Shara and Jourat al-Nazal.

Elsewhere, warplanes continued to pound Syria’s rural Idlib and Hama Sunday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group said at least 45 insurgents were killed in airstrikes Saturday on a village in northern Idlib.

The strikes were retaliation for last Tuesday’s militant offensive against government forces in Hama province, which was spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the militant Turkistan Islamic Party and rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army. The bombing campaign in heavily populated civilian areas shattered six months of relative calm. Russian-inspired cease-fires had given a temporary reprieve to tens of thousands of people living in rebel-held northwestern Syria.

But now thousands of civilians who had been returning to their homes have headed back to the relative safety of refugee camps along the Turkish border, which are protected under Russian-Turkish understandings, residents said.

“People are very afraid things have gone back to what they were and returned back to camps – there is no longer any hope,” said Ahmad Thaib, a resident of Jabal al-Zawya.

The Syrian Civil Defense said one person was killed in Aleppo bombing, which it said targeted a cow farm.

Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the Observatory, said the airstrikes targeted a base in Mardikh that belongs to Failaq al-Sham, a fighting group that had agreed to the cease-fire. 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.

In other developments, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced the formation of a civilian council to govern Deir al-Zor province, where they are racing with the Syrian army to capture territory held by Daesh.

The SDF, which includes Arab militias but is dominated by the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, launched an operation in Deir al-Zor province bordering Iraq earlier this month that captured its northern countryside and advanced east of the Euphrates River.

It seized a major gas field in Deir al-Zor province from Daesh militants Saturday in rapid advances that pre-empted Syrian government forces, who were also heading in that direction.

Commander Ahmad Abu Khawla told Reuters that the Conoco gas field was the first of its kind taken by the SDF, adding that the Syrian army and their allies were within 4 kilometers of the SDF positions.