Syrian government helicopters dropped barrels full of explosives on a rebel-held town near the northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 50 people in two separate attacks over the weekend, activists said Sunday.
The shelling Sunday hit near a bakery in the town of al-Bab, located east of Aleppo, killing at least 24 people, said Rami Abdurrahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Akram al-Halabi, a rebel spokesman based in nearby in Aleppo.
The Observatory obtained its information from a network of activists on the ground. Syrian state media said government forces killed "terrorists," which is how they describe armed rebels fighting against President Bashar Assad's rule.
The attack followed a similar bombing on Saturday, when army helicopters targeted a rebel compound in al-Bab, but missed their target and hit a market, killing 26 people, Abdurrahman said.
The army used barrel bombs in both attacks, which contain hundreds of pounds (kilograms) of explosives.
The Observatory also said government forces fought rebels, including members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, inside the predominantly Christian town of Maaloula near Damascus.
It is near Nabek, where there have been clashes for the past three days.
Nabek is located along a key highway connecting Damascus with Homs, Syria's third largest city. Clearing towns and villages of rebels along the highway would help the government regain control of its main overland supply route.
Military aircraft targeted Nabek on Sunday, just hours after a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car near a police station in the town, killing five members of the security forces, the Observatory said.
Rebels also fired mortar rounds into the capital and surrounding areas, killing one woman in the suburb of Harasta, the state news agency SANA said.
A mortar shell also hit a French school in the capital's upscale Mazzeh district. There were no casualties in the attack, although more than 200 students were attending classes when the shell hit, said a school receptionist. The school suspended classes after the attack and parents took their children home for fear of more shells landing there, he said.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to brief journalists.
In a statement, France's foreign ministry condemned the attack as "cowardly act that could have caused the death of young children."
REUTERS/AP