International
Syrian government aircraft dropped barrels packed with explosives on opposition-held areas of the contested northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, leveling buildings, incinerating cars and killing at least 37 people including 16 children, activists said.
Government forces pounded the opposition neighborhoods of Haidariya, Ard al-Hamra, Sukhour, Marjeh and at least two others with barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said Syrian air force jets were also flying over the same districts.
The government frequently uses barrel bombs, which contain hundreds of pounds of explosives and cause massive damage on impact. The Aleppo Media Center, another activist group, said government aircraft dropped at least 25 barrel bombs on the city Sunday.
Civil defense volunteers told Al Jazeera they had not rested since the morning, as they tried to cope amid the bombardment.
"More than 10 different areas in Aleppo came under heavy bombardment," one member of the team told Al Jazeera. "They were shelled by both explosive barrels and missiles."
The Observatory, which monitors the Syrian conflict through a network of monitors on the ground, also said the number of people killed in the town of Adra, northeast of Damascus, has risen to 32 after a rebel faction attacked on Wednesday.
Abdurrahman said the dead were primarily members of President Bashar al-Assad's minority Alawite sect, as well as a few Druse and Shia Muslims. All three sects largely support Assad in the fight against the mainly Sunni rebels.
Meanwhile, United Nations officials visited Damascus to discuss how to help Syrians survive winter, and the first United Nations aid flight from Iraq to Syria took off on Sunday after being delayed for several days due to bad weather.
The U.N. aid plane was expected to arrive in Qamishli in northeastern Syria, according to Abeer Etefa, senior Middle East spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food Program.
Laurent Fabius, foreign minister of France, spoke of his concern for the Syrian people during a World Policy Conference in Monaco on Saturday, saying he doubted the peace conference planned for Geneva next month would take place.
He warned that a failure to hold the meeting could mean more suffering for Syrians.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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