Twin bombing kills 24, including four children in Syria's Idlib

A bomb attack in Syria's jihadist-held city of Idlib on Monday killed 24 people, including four children, a war monitor said. The bomb was planted under a car in the main city of the Idlib region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. “A motorcycle bomb detonated after ambulances arrived at the scene of the first explosion, the Britain-based monitoring group said. Over 51 were also injured in the incident. Idlib is the last major part of Syria still outside the control of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Earlier, Donald Trump surprised the world and his country as well when he suddenly announced that the US is pulling out its troops from Syria. "In Syria, Erdogan said he wants to knock out ISIS, whatever's left, the remnants of ISIS. And Saudi Arabia just came out and said they are going to pay for some economic development. Which is great, that means we don't have to pay. We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous," Trump added.

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Trump's sudden decision sparked turmoil in his administration, prompting the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, as well as of Brett McGurk, the special envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition.

HTS took administrative control of the whole of the region last month, after overpowering smaller Turkey-backed factions.

The Islamic State group also has sleeper cells in the area.

A local office of the "Salvation Government", an administrative body created by HTS, is located on the street targeted by Monday's attack.

Four HTS fighters were killed in the blast, the Observatory said, while the other 20 victims were civilians.

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Idlib has been protected from a massive regime offensive since September by a buffer zone deal agreed by regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey.

Eight years into the conflict that has killed more than 360,000 people, the government controls nearly two-thirds of the country.