Regime bombardment kills 25 civilians in Aleppo — monitor
Civilian death toll since start of Syrian government offensive on Tuesday rises to at least 65
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian airstrikes and shelling killed 25 civilians in eastern districts of Aleppo on Thursday, a monitor said, on the third day of a wide-ranging regime assault on rebel-held areas.
The bombardment hit at least six rebel-held neighborhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
At least 65 civilians have been killed in east Aleppo since the start of the regime offensive on Tuesday, they said.
The renewed bombardment has shattered a month of relative calm in the devastated east of the divided city.
An AFP correspondent in the eastern districts said the sounds of dropping barrel bombs had been heard since 10 a.m. (0800 GMT).
One of the airstrikes targeted a civil defense center in the Bab al-Nayrab neighborhood with no reported casualties, the correspondent said.
Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been roughly divided into a regime-controlled west and a rebel-held east since 2012.
The city has been ravaged by a civil war that has killed more than 300,000 people since it started in March 2011 with anti-government protests.