Raid kills 25, including 6 children, in Syria`s Aleppo: NGO

An airstrike on Syria`s second city Aleppo on Sunday killed at least 25 people, a monitor said.

Beirut: An airstrike on Syria`s second city Aleppo on Sunday killed at least 25 people, including six children, a monitor said, part of a week-long regime bombing campaign that has left hundreds dead.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group relying on activists and other witnesses inside Syria, said another 17 people were critically wounded when regime aircraft dropped "TNT-packed barrels" on the Hanano neighbourhood. "The number of people killed in the bombing on Hanano might rise," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman. The Syrian air force today had dropped TNT-packed barrels on several parts of Aleppo and villages nearby. Activists in the northern city had singled out the bombing of Hanano as especially deadly, as the highly destructive barrel bombs had struck a bus. The Aleppo Media Centre, a network of citizen journalists on the ground, said the bombs "destroyed a bus, leaving no survivors," and demolished about 10 cars and a residential building. Other air attacks struck the rebel-held Sakhur, Ahmadiyeh, Baideen and Ard al-Hamra neighbourhoods of the city, which has been cleaved into regime- and rebel-held enclaves since the summer of 2012. Elsewhere in Aleppo province, Marea and Atareb villages were also hit Sunday, said the Observatory. The Syrian Revolution General Commission, a network of grassroots activists, described "panic and mass flight to the countryside, despite the intense cold". Meanwhile, Aleppo`s opposition Provincial Council announced schools in rebel-held areas would be closed "for a week... Because of the systematic, deliberate bombing". Footage distributed by Shahba Press, another network of citizen journalists, showed children in a bombed-out school in Marea in the north of Aleppo province. One of the children said the school had been bombed multiple times while classes were being held. Human Rights Watch yesterday accused regime forces of "wreaking disaster" in Aleppo with an "unlawful" aerial bombing campaign which has killed hundreds in the past week.