Syrian army bombs school, says monitor

A group monitoring the Syrian war said at least nine people including five children were killed in a Syrian army air strike that hit a school in a rebel-held area of the country’s second city Aleppo today. The army denied the report.

A Syrian army source said the army had stepped up attacks on rebels since the insurgents bombarded a government-held residential area in the northwestern city yesterday. But he said the military had not targeted civilians.

Aleppo is a major frontline in the four-year-old Syrian civil war, a conflict which the UN says has killed about 220,000 people. The city, about 50km (30 miles) from the Turkish border, is divided between government and insurgent control.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war using a network of sources, said the death toll from the strike on Jamil al Qabani school would likely rise. The dead included two women, it said.

The observatory circulated a video which it said showed the aftermath of the attack. A man is shown holding what he says is the severed lower leg and foot of a child, while rescue workers are shown carrying away what appears to be a body wrapped in a sheet. – (Reuters)