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Activists: Syrian regime air attacks in Aleppo kill far more civilians than rebels

Amnesty International says the Syrian government deliberately targeted civilian areas with imprecise "barrel bomb" attacks, constituting a "crime against humanity."

By Fred Lambert
Syrians walk by a building that was damaged by a government airstrike in Aleppo, Syria, on September 12, 2012. A May 4, 2015 report by human rights NGO Amnesty International states that between January 2014 and March 2015, barrel bomb attacks by the Syrian regime on Aleppo killed more than 3,000 civilians and little more than 30 rebel fighters. File photo by Ahmad Deeb/UPI
Syrians walk by a building that was damaged by a government airstrike in Aleppo, Syria, on September 12, 2012. A May 4, 2015 report by human rights NGO Amnesty International states that between January 2014 and March 2015, barrel bomb attacks by the Syrian regime on Aleppo killed more than 3,000 civilians and little more than 30 rebel fighters. File photo by Ahmad Deeb/UPI | License Photo

ALEPPO, Syria, May 5 (UPI) -- The Syrian government has targeted civilian areas of Aleppo with inaccurate air attacks, killing thousands more civilians than rebels over the past year, human rights organization Amnesty International says.

"Civilians in the city of Aleppo, Syria are being subjected to appalling human rights violations committed by the Syrian government and many armed opposition groups," Amnesty International said in a May 4 report. "These violations amount to war crimes and in the case of those committed by the Syrian government, are so systematic and widespread that they constitute crimes against humanity."

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Between January 2014 and March 2015, barrel bombing by the Syrian regime in Aleppo has killed 3,124 civilians and 35 rebel fighters, according to data from the Violations Documentation Center, a Syria-based monitoring group, which is cited in the report.

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Amnesty International describes "barrel bombs" as "large improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which are dropped from helicopters."

"They consist of oil barrels, fuel tanks or gas cylinders that have been packed with explosives, fuel and metal fragments -- such as ball bearings, nails and machine parts -- to increase their lethal effect," the report states.

The weapons are notoriously inaccurate.

The BBC reports a barrel bomb attack on a nursery school in Aleppo's Saif al-Dawla district killed 10 people on Sunday, including four children and a teacher.

Amnesty International reports a decrease in the amount of barrel bomb attacks in Aleppo between September 2014 and March 2015 but notes a dramatic recent increase as portions of Syria's northwest, such as Idlib province, have slipped further from government control.

Last week, at least 60 civilians were killed and wounded in Syrian government air attacks in Darkoush, a town in Idlib province, where the Syrian army has suffered a series of recent setbacks from an offensive by allied Islamist factions, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gets information from multiple sources on the ground in Syria.

Monday's report also condemned "attacks by armed opposition groups on residential neighborhoods in government-held areas of Aleppo" that use "imprecise explosive weapons such as mortars, which should never be used in the vicinity of concentrations of civilians" -- as well as "abductions and hostage-taking" by "non-state armed groups" and the "arbitrary detention, torture, and other mistreatment of prisoners in Aleppo," which it says also constitute war crimes.

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Compounding it all is the lack of electricity, water, food, medical care and fuel to heat homes in civilian areas of Aleppo.

In a February interview with the BBC, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denied his forces targeted civilian areas with barrel bombs.

The month prior, SOHR reported 504 regime airstrikes -- including hundreds of barrel bomb attacks in places such as Aleppo and Idlib -- had killed 127 civilians and wounded at least 500 others in a 96-hour period.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition bombing Islamic State forces in Syria killed over 50 civilians in airstrikes northeast of Aleppo on Friday, according to SOHR, though U.S. Central Command said it had no evidence of civilian casualties.

The previous November, the monitoring group reported airstrikes in Syria by the U.S.-led coalition, since beginning in September, had killed 785 IS fighters, 72 al-Qaida-backed Nusra Front militants and 52 civilians.

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