Rebel shelling against regime forces in Aleppo, Syria, kills 17 civilians

ALEPPO, Syria, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Rebel shelling of regime-held positions in Aleppo, Syria, killed at least 17 civilians on Sunday, according to reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group monitoring the conflict, said the dead include nine children and three woman, and that the shelling has been concentrated against the al-Sayyed Ali, al-Aziziyyah and al-Hamidiyyah districts of the city.

Syrian state news reports 14 civilians were killed in rebel rocket barrages in Aleppo on Sunday, including seven children, while 25 other were injured. The rockets reportedly launched from the Bani Zaid neighborhood against the al-Midan neighborhood.

SANA reported rebel mortars fired from the Bab al-Hadid neighborhood later in the day landed in the al-Sayyed Ali district, injuring eight civilians, three of them critically.

Shelling by insurgent forces against the Syrian military in Aleppo killed and injured scores of civilians last week. The rebels were reportedly attempting to divert Syrian military attention away from other rebel attacks in the city.

Since the beginning of Syria's civil war in 2011, Aleppo has been a bloody battleground, but in recent months the wider Aleppo province has been the scene of complex fighting between rival insurgent groups and the Syrian regime, which has itself come under scrutiny from activist groups that accuse it of indiscriminate air attacks that kill far more civilians than rebels.

SOHR also accused the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State forces in the country of an early May airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in a village in the province, but U.S. officials said they had found no evidence to corroborate the claim.