Regime barrel bomb ‘kills family’ in Syria’s Aleppo

By Khaled Suleiman

ALEPPO, Syria

At least 15 members of the same family were killed Thursday in a barrel bomb attack carried out by Syrian regime forces in northern Syria’s Aleppo province, according to a civil defense official.

Regime helicopters dropped barrel bombs on Aleppo’s Bab al-Nairab neighborhood, killing 15 members of the same family, Nagib al-Ansari told Anadolu Agency.

“Ten children, including a baby, were among those killed in the regime attack,” he said.

According to Ansari, the strike has left 18 people injured and destroyed four houses in the neighborhood.

In recent weeks, 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.