Syria barrel bomb raids \\\'kill 85\\\' after Geneva talks
AFP | Sunday, 2 February 2014
DAMASCUS: At least 85 people were killed in 24 hours of Syrian regime air raids on the city of Aleppo, a monitoring group said Sunday, after 10 days of inconclusive peace talks.
The deaths came as a suicide car bombing in a Hezbollah stronghold across the border in Lebanon killed four people Saturday, in the latest regional spillover of the conflict.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime helicopters hit rebel-held areas of Aleppo with barrels packed with explosives.
The so-called barrel bombs are a controversial weapon, condemned by rights groups as indiscriminate.
"At least 85 people were killed, including 65 civilians, 10 of whom were children," Saturday, the Observatory said.
The group said 34 people were killed in one neighbourhood alone, and 10 of the dead were jihadists from Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate.