Syrian regime kills 11 children in airstrikes, monitor says

BEIRUT — Syrian government airstrikes on two rebel-held areas of the central province of Homs killed at least 25 civilians, 11 of them children, a monitoring group said on Sunday.

Sixteen members of a single family were among 18 people killed in raids late Saturday on the town of Talbisseh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

They included 10 children and three women, said the Britain-based monitoring group which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.

In the Waer district on the outskirts of Homs — the only area of Syria’s third city still in rebel hands — the evening airstrikes killed seven people, including a child, the Observatory added.

Homs was once dubbed “the capital of the revolution” against President Bashar Assad.

But government forces retook control of the whole of the rest of the city in May when rebel fighters withdrew from central districts under a UN-brokered deal that ended a punishing two-year siege.