At least 100
people, including children, were killed on Sunday when Syrian army helicopters
dropped improvised "barrel bombs" in the northern province of Aleppo,
local activists said.
Human Rights Watch said in a report over
the weekend that barrel bomb attacks had killed scores of civilians in Aleppo
in the last month. It described the attacks as illegal and said they had hit
residential and shopping areas.
"The Syrian air force is either
criminally incompetent, doesn't care whether it kills scores of civilians, or
deliberately targets civilian areas," HRW senior emergency researcher Ole
Solvang said in the report.
Barrel bombs are explosive-filled
cylinders or oil drums that are often rolled out of the back of helicopters
with little attempt at striking a particular target. They are capable of
causing widespread casualties and significant damage.
President Bashar al-Assad's forces,
battling rebels in a 2 1/2-year conflict that has killed more than 100,000
people, frequently deploy air power and artillery against rebel-held districts
across the country.
They have been unable to recapture eastern
and central parts of Aleppo, which rebels seized in the summer of 2012, but
they have driven rebel fighters back from towns to the southeast of the city in
recent weeks. (with Reuters)
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