Air strike on school by Assad forces kills 18

An air strike on a school in Syria's northern city of Aleppo by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's forces killed at least 18 people yesterday, mainly children, a day after attacks on government-controlled cities killed more than 100 people.

The devastating strikes, which stand out for their ferocity even in a civil war that kills 200 to 300 people a day, come as Syria prepares for an election likely to extend Dr Assad's grip on power.

On Tuesday, a day after Dr Assad nominated himself to run for a third term in a vote already derided as a sham by his opponents, two car bombs struck in a government-controlled part of Homs.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said yesterday the death toll from those bombs had risen to 100.

A mortar attack on a school, which authorities blamed on “terrorists” battling Dr Assad, also killed at least 14 people.

Yesterday’s air strike on the Ain Jalout school in the Al-Ansari area of Aleppo appeared to be part of the sustained bombardment of the contested city by Dr Assad’s forces.

The observatory put the death toll from the attack at 18, while the anti-Assad Aleppo Media Centre said 25 children had been killed.

For months Dr Assad's forces have dropped barrel bombs – crude but powerful explosives not designed for precision targeting – on rebel-held parts of the city, despite an appeal from the UN Security Council two months ago for a halt.

The US-based Human Rights Watch said this week it had documented 85 sites in Aleppo hit by aerial bombardment since the Security Council’s appeal. – (Reuters)