Syrian
helicopter bomb raids kill 42 in Aleppo: monitors
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[December 23, 2013]
BEIRUT (Reuters) — At least 42
people, including children, were killed on Sunday when Syrian army
helicopters dropped improvised "barrel bombs" in the northern province
of Aleppo, a monitoring group said.
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The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
separate air raids hit several districts in Aleppo, but the biggest
toll was in Hanano, east of the city. At least six children were
among the dead.
"They hit a convoy of cars on a road in Hanano, many cars were
destroyed. There were civilians there," said the Observatory's Rami
Abdelrahman.
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.
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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.
(Reporting by Mariam Karouny; editing by Larry King)
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