Bombs kill 11 civilians in Syria

BEIRUT: At least 11 civilians, among them three children, were killed on Thursday in regime barrel bomb attacks on a Jihadist-held town in northern Syria, a monitoring group said.
Government helicopters dropped the crude and indiscriminate weapons on Al-Bab, which lies in the northern province of Aleppo and is held by the extremist Islamic State group, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Since Saturday, at least 68 civilians have been killed in aerial attacks on the town.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP the “intensified air attacks by regime forces on Al-Bab are aimed at foiling IS efforts on multiple fronts,” including the nearby Kweyris military airport, which IS has besieged for more than a year.
Al-Bab is strategically important because it is one of IS’s closest positions to regime-held parts of Aleppo, he said.
In May, more than 60 civilians were killed by barrel bomb attacks on the town. Syria’s embattled regime has heavily bombarded areas in Aleppo province that have fallen out of its control.
To the west, in Idlib province, an alliance of rebels and Islamist fighters carried heavily shelled the province’s last two regime-held villages for the second consecutive day.