Regime barrel bomb kills 7 in Syria’s Aleppo

By Khaled Suleiman

ALEPPO, Syria

Seven people were killed in a barrel bomb attack carried out by the Syrian regime on Saturday in the northern Aleppo province.

A regime helicopter dropped a barrel bomb on Aleppo’s ancient city, killing seven people, civil defense official Ibrahim Abu Laith told Anadolu Agency.

“A large number of people were also injured in the attack,” he said.

Abu Laith said rescuers were looking for survivors under the debris of destroyed buildings in the area.

In recent days, regime helicopters -- along with Russian and Syrian warplanes -- have struck a number of marketplaces, hospitals and civil defense centers in opposition-held parts of war-battered Aleppo city.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.

The Syrian Center for Policy Research, however, put the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.