Five children among nine killed in Syria airstrike

At least nine people, including five children, were killed on Sunday in a Syrian airstrike on a rebel-held area in Syria's northern city of Aleppo, a monitoring group reported.

The airstrike targeted the Jamil al-Qabani school in the Ansari neighbourhood in Aleppo, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It added that the toll could rise due to the large number of critically wounded people.

Separately, a child was killed and many others wounded by an aerial bombardment on the district of Sheikh Khuder in Aleppo, Xinhua news agency reported citing the observatory, which relies on a network of activists on ground.

The airstrikes came just a day after the rebels' shelling of government-controlled areas in Aleppo left at least 17 people dead and entire building blocks reduced to rubble in the Sulaimanyieh neighbourhood, according to activists and the state news agency SANA.

Aleppo, Syria's second largest city and former economic hub, has emerged as one of the main focal points in Syria's long-running conflict.

The city is divided between the government-controlled areas in the west and the rebel-held ones in the east, with both sides shelling each other on a daily basis.