A man stands amid rubble in an amateur video said to have been shot on 8 October in Latamna, Hama province, Syria. He said his home had been destroyed by a Russian air strike the day before.

"Yesterday, the f***ing Russian plane with Assad's help, look at this. I have no home left, I have nothing left. I did not manage to get mattresses out or clothes for my girls. Look at this destruction," he said.

"No clothes, no nothing. Look at all this destruction that they have caused," he added.

Syrian troops and militia backed by Russian warplanes mounted what appeared to be their first major coordinated assault on Syrian insurgents on 7 October and Moscow said its warships fired a barrage of missiles at them from the Caspian Sea, a sign of its new military reach.

The combined operation hit towns close to the main north-south highway that runs through major cities in the mainly government-held west of Syria, said the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, a British-based group that tracks the conflict via a network of sources within the country. Hama is located between Aleppo and Damascus on the highway.

The Syrian government, again backed by Russian air power, continued the major offensive on 8 October. Russian air strikes started last week and have mostly focused in areas of western Syria where Assad has sought to shore up his control after losing swathes of the rest of the country to insurgents including Islamic State.

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