Air strikes on Al-Qaeda's former affiliate in Syria on Tuesday killed 26 people in the country's northwest, most of them civilians, a monitoring group said.

The headquarters of Fateh al-Sham Front and the surrounding neighbourhood in Idlib city were battered by at least 10 strikes at dawn, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources on the ground for its reports.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman initially said 10 civilians were killed, but after further verification, he said the victims included "16 civilians, most of them women and children".

"The toll could rise because some people are trapped under the rubble and unaccounted for," he said.

Abdel Rahman said the raids were probably carried out by Russian warplanes -- allied with Syria's government -- or by a US-backed air coalition.

But Russia quickly denied it had struck Idlib.

"Russian military planes did not carry out a single strike in Idlib yesterday, or this week, or even since the beginning of 2017," the defence ministry in Moscow said in a statement.

"Any information on these strikes are well-known lies."

Russia has waged a fierce bombing campaign in support of the Damascus regime since September 2015, a year after the US-led coalition began its own strikes against jihadist groups.

Fateh al-Sham has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks in Idlib province, the only remaining opposition-held province in war-ravaged Syria.

Bombing raids against the group have escalated, including one US strike in January that killed more than 100 fighters at a training camp in Idlib province.

On Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman said US forces targeted Al-Qaeda operatives "in two precision strikes" on February 3 and 4.

"The February 4 strike targeted Abu Hani al-Masri, a legacy Al-Qaeda terrorist with ties to the group's senior leaders, including Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden," Eric Pahon said.

"We are assessing the results of those strikes and will announce definitive results as soon as practicable."

The US-led coalition has mostly focused on Fateh al-Sham's jihadist rival, the Islamic State group, but it has also hit operatives from other factions.

Rebel groups have held Idlib province since the spring of 2015, four years after the Syria conflict first broke out.

More than 310,000 people have died since, and millions have been forced to flee their homes.

France, Britain push US to keep pressure on Islamic State
United Nations, United States (AFP) Feb 7, 2017 - France and Britain said Tuesday the US-led coalition battling the Islamic State group must press on and re-take Raqa as President Donald Trump mulled a new strategy to defeat the radical militants.

France, the second largest contributor to the 68-country coalition fighting in Syria and Iraq, considers the fight against IS the "number one priority," said Ambassador Francois Delattre.

"It's very important that this country that we are living in fully recognizes the threat of Daesh," said Delattre, using the Arab acronym for Islamic State.

"We helped the Iraqi forces to retake Mosul. The battle to retake Raqa in Syria is also critical," the ambassador told reporters ahead of a Security Council meeting on the threat posed by IS.

Britain also said the coalition, set up by former president Barack Obama in 2014, must stay the course.

"The next step for us is to attack Daesh in Raqa and in Mosul, and to keep up the momentum that we have managed to maintain," said British Deputy Ambassador Peter Wilson.

Trump on Monday visited US Central Command and vowed to defeat "radical Islamic terrorism," but he did not offer details about his strategy which is under a 30-day review by the US military leadership.

Trump has reportedly shelved Obama's plans for taking Raqa, the IS group's de facto capital in Syria, and is considering stronger cooperation with Russia, the Syrian regime's ally.

The Security Council met to discuss a new UN report showing that the jihadists were losing territory, their revenues were dropping and recruitment was waning.

"Daesh is on the backfoot, their finances have been crippled, many of their leaders have been killed and the flow of foreign fighters to Daesh is drying up," said Wilson.

"The key thing is to keep the focus on Daesh -- to attack Daesh rather than to attack innocent civilians," he added.

UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman told the council that while IS was "on the defensive militarily in several regions", it still appears to have sufficient funds to continue fighting.