Regime warplanes kill 8 civilians in western Syria

By Ahmed al-Homsi

HOMS, Syria

At least eight civilians, including two children were killed and dozens others were injured on Friday when warplanes of the Syrian regime attacked the opposition-held al-Ganto town in Syria’s western Homs province.

According to a civil defense source, Syrian regime aircraft had launched four airstrikes, targeting residential neighborhoods in al-Gantz area of the town. Civil defense teams were still in the process of pulling out the dead and wounded from under the rubble of flattened buildings, the source, who stayed anonymous for safety reasons, told Anadolu Agency.

Some of the critically injured were shifted to hospitals in the neighboring towns of al-Rastan and Talbiseh.

Warplanes of the Syrian regime and Russia have stepped up strikes recently, targeting cities and villages in the northern countryside of Homs province. During the past two weeks, more than a hundred air raids have been reportedly carried out, killing about 20 civilians and wounding more than 60 others in addition to causing large destruction of residential houses.

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.