A Syrian military airstrike killed at least 13 people, including children, and wounded another 20 in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on Tuesday after striking a neighborhood with crude bombs, said activists.
The military aircraft dropped at least one "barrel bomb" crude weapons made from canisters laden with explosives and hurled from helicopters to strike the Qabr al-Inglizi area in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on Tuesday, reported the activist collective, the Aleppo Media Center, and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Observatory said at least 13 were killed, including two children and a woman, and that the death toll was likely to rise because more people were buried under the rubble.
At least two slain children were piled into the back of a flat-bed truck; at least one was covered under a bright red blanket; a man referred to the children as being torn apart as he partially lifted the blanket, according to a video of the incident uploaded to social media. The video appeared genuine and corresponded with The Associated Press reporting of the event. "Bashar you dog! You oppressor! May this happen to your children!" said one man in the video, referring to President Bashar Assad. "These are children, not terrorists!" he said, standing on a wall and gesticulating with his hands.
Another video of the incident showed a burning vehicle. It wasn't clear if something else was targeted as well.
The Syrian military widely uses so-called "barrel bombs" to strike at rebel-held areas. They have been widely criticized because they cannot be precisely targeted, and are believed to have killed thousands of civilians, particularly in northern Syria.
Syria's war, now well into its fourth year, began as an uprising against Assad's continued rule. It has since become a complicated civil war, and activists estimate some 200,000 people have been killed.
In Kobani, Kurdish fighters captured six buildings used by Islamic State militants besieging the Syrian town on Tuesday, and seized a large amount of the jihadist group's weapons and ammunition, a group monitoring the war said.
Islamic State has been trying to take control of the town, also known as Ayn al-Arab, for more than two months in an assault that has driven tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians over the border into
Turkey and drawn strikes by U.S.-led forces.
The hardline Sunni Muslim movement, an offshoot of al Qaeda, has declared an Islamic caliphate covering large areas of land that it has captured in other parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.
Kurdish fighters seized six buildings used by Islamic State close to council offices in the north of the town and took a large quantity of rocket-propelled grenade launchers, guns and machine gun ammunition, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The buildings were in a strategic location close to Kobani's Security Square where the main municipal buildings are based, said Rami Abdulrahman who runs the Observatory, a group that tracks the conflict using sources on the ground.
The clashes killed around 13 Islamic State militants, including two senior fighters who had been helping to lead the militant group's assault on the town, he said.
Kurdish forces appear to have made other gains in recent days of fighting. Last week they blocked a road Islamic State was using to resupply their forces, the first major gain against the jihadists after weeks of violence.
"During the last few days we have made big progress in the east and southeast," said Idris Nassan, an official in Kobani.
Speaking by telephone, he estimated Islamic State controlled less than 20 percent of the town. Last month, officials said Islamic State controlled around 40 percent as it pushed further into the town.
The defense of Kobani has drawn in Kurdish Peshmerga fighters from Iraq as well as Syrian rebel fighters. The U.S. military said on Monday it carried out nine strikes near Kobani since late last week, destroying seven Islamic State positions, four staging areas and one unit belonging to the group.
REUTERS/AP