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                   Rights Group: Syrian Barrel Bombs Kill 71

   by VOA News

   Syrian activists said an airstrike by Syrian government forces has
   killed 71 people, most of them civilians, in the northern province of
   Aleppo.

   The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said military helicopters
   dropped barrel bombs - crude weapons made of oil drums, gas cylinders
   or water tanks packed with explosives and scrap metal - on the
   rebel-held Shaar neighborhood of the city of Aleppo and on a market in
   the town of al-Bab, which is held by the Islamic State militant group.

   Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has denied the air force uses such
   devices.

   Dozens of people were wounded in the attacks, according to the
   monitoring group, which gathers information from sources on the ground.
   Aleppo, once Syria's commercial hub, has been the focus of several
   heavy bombardments by the military since late last year.

   Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Britain-based monitoring group,
   said 12 people were killed in rebel-held Al-Shaar, including eight
   members of a single family.

   The other 59 civilians, all male, were killed at a market in Al-Bab,
   Rahman told the French news agency AFP.

   State news agency SANA did not report on these specific raids but,
   citing a military source, said the armed forces had targeted Islamic
   State militants in Aleppo province's eastern countryside and hit
   "terrorist organizations" on a road running north to the border, as
   well as to the south of Aleppo city and within the city itself.

   Military setbacks


   The military has recently been hit by a series of recent setbacks.


   Insurgents, including al-Qaida's Syrian wing Nusra Front, celebrated
   inside the last government-held town in Idlib province on Friday after
   capturing it the night before while the Islamic State group has secured
   its grip on the ancient central city of Palmyra.

   In Syria's northeast, clashes erupted between pro-government forces and
   Islamic State fighters to the south and southeast of Hasaka city, the
   Observatory said on Friday, after the al-Qaida offshoot planted a bomb
   on the edge of the city.

   Hasaka province is strategically important as it lies next to Islamic
   State-held territory in Iraq, where the group is back on the offensive
   after losing the city of Tikrit at the start of the month.

   SANA said the Syrian military had foiled an attack on Hasaka and that
   it had been targeting Islamic State in the countryside with the help of
   Kurdish YPG militia. The YPG, which has fought the fiercest battles
   against Islamic State in the northeast, says it does not coordinate
   with the Syrian military.

   The Syrian conflict erupted in 2011 with a popular uprising that
   descended into a complex civil war that has killed at least 220,000
   people.

   Material for this report came from Reuters, AFP and AP.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/syrian-observatory-syrian-barrel-bomb
   s-kill-71-in-aleppo/2800329.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/syrian-observatory-syrian-barrel-bombs-kill-71-in-aleppo/2800329.html