34 killed in Syria airstrikes

As many as 34 people have been killed on Wednesday by Syrian airstrikes on rebel-held areas in northwestern and southern parts of the country, a monitoring group said.

The aerial bombardment against areas in the northwestern city of Idlib and its suburb Saraqeb left 24 people killed, including two children, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Britain-based watchdog group said the strikes targeted a building where civilians were hiding, adding that other strikes hit the surroundings of the Abu Alduhur airbase, which is surrounded by the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in the countryside of Idlib.

In the southern province of Daraa, another hotspot harbouring Al Qaeda militants near the Jordanian borders, airstrikes by the Syrian air force killed 10 people, including seven children, Xinhua news agency reported citing the observatory.

Syrian state news agency SANA said the Syrian air force targeted convoys of vehicles and weaponry belonging to the rebels in the countryside of Idlib, destroying the convoys and killing tens of the militants.

The operation in Aleppo came just a day after the Syrian government forces backed by loyal fighters were said to have repelled an attack by the Nusra Front against the government-controlled district of Jamiyet al-Zahara in the western part of Aleppo city.

The Nusra militants blew up a tunnel under the Aviation Intelligence Headquarters in Jamiyet al-Zahara, followed by intense battles that lasted for hours until Tuesday morning.

Opposition activists claimed that panic spread among the residents in the western part of Aleppo, and that the government started to empty its crucial institutions, such as the museum of Aleppo and the Central Bank.

The observatory said 40 crude barrel bombs were dropped on Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees since April 4, the day on which the air campaign over the camp was started.