13 civilians killed in bus attack in eastern Syria

A Syrian government airstrike hit a bus carrying civilians in eastern Syria on Wednesday, killing at least 13 people, most of them children, opposition activists said. But the government in the capital, Damascus, blamed the Islamic State group for the incident, describing it as ‘yet another massacre’ committed by the extremist group. Activists said the aircraft-fired missile struck the bus in the village of Shoula as it was traveling to Damascus from the eastern Deir el-Zour province. The civilians on the bus were the latest victims in Syria's civil war, which is now in its fourth year and which has killed more than 190,000 people, according to the United Nations. The conflict has pitted forces loyal to President Bashar Assad against rebels and others fighting to topple him, including increasingly powerful Islamic extremist groups. One of the militant groups, the al-Qaida-breakaway Islamic State, has taken over roughly a third of both Syria and Iraq, and declared a self-styled caliphate spanning the Iraq-Syria border, according to AP.