Turkey is violating an hours-old ceasefire in northeastern Syria and still targeting civilians with air strikes and artillery fire, a Kurdish military spokesman said on Friday.

"Despite the agreement to halt the fighting, air and artillery attacks continue to target the positions of fighters, civilian settlements and the hospital" in the battleground border town of Ras al-Ain, Mustefa Bali said.

The five-day suspension looked designed to help Turkey achieve its main territorial goals without fighting but its Syrian proxies continued to clash with Kurdish fighters Friday and an air strike killed five civilians.

"Five civilians were killed in Turkish air strikes on the village of Bab al-Kheir, east of Ras al-Ain," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.

The Britain-based war monitor said four fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces -- the de facto army of the embattled Kurdish autonomous region -- were killed in the strike.

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