Syrian Helicopter Bomb Raids Kill 42 In Aleppo: Monitors

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. 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. 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. REUTERS