Assad air raids 'kill 40 in and around Aleppo

At least 40 people were killed on Saturday in Syrian regime air strikes on the northern city of Aleppo and surrounding areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Syria's second city and onetime commercial hub has seen intense fighting for more than a year between President Bashar al-Assad's troops and rebels fighting to overthrow him, with both sides having carved out enclaves among the ruins.

The Britain-based monitoring group said at least 14 people had been killed in Aleppo city's eastern Tariq al-Bab district.

Another 15 people, including a woman and a child, were killed in four air strikes in the nearby town of Al-Bab and the area of Tadef, the Observatory said.

Video posted online by Syrian activists showed chaos at the scene of the Tariq al-Bab strikes, with dozens of people picking through the rubble of a partially collapsed building and ambulance sirens sounding.

Local residents could be seen throwing buckets of water onto a charred car still in flames.

More than 120,000 people have been killed in Syria's bloody conflict, which began after the government cracked down on anti-government protests that started in March 2011.

AFP