Russian jets hit Syria’s Aleppo; 30 killed, scores hurt

By Halit Suleyman and Levent Tok

ALEPPO, Syria

At least 30 civilians were killed and another 70 injured -- including women and children -- by a Monday airstrike by Russian warplanes in Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo, according to a local civil defense source.

Russian jets pounded western Aleppo’s opposition-held village of Uwayshiyah, said the source, who spoke anonymously due to safety concerns.

Several structures were destroyed in the airstrikes, the source added, pointing out that civil defense teams were still in the process of rescuing victims from under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

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.

For the past year, Russia -- citing the need to combat "terrorism" and support the embattled Assad regime -- has carried out numerous airstrikes in opposition-held parts of Aleppo, which have led to the death and injury of hundreds of the city’s civilian inhabitants.