Toll from barrel bomb raids on Syria's Aleppo hits 85

The death toll from regime airstrikes on Syria's Aleppo has risen to 85, a monitoring group said today, as the conflict grinds on after 10 days of inconclusive peace talks.
The latest fighting came as a suicide car bomb in a Hezbollah stronghold across the border in Lebanon killed four people yesterday, stoking fears of further regional spillover of the conflict.
Helicopters hit rebel-held areas of Aleppo yesterday with barrels packed with explosives, a controversial tactic widely condemned by rights groups as indiscriminate.
"At least 85 people were killed, including 65 civilians, 10 of whom were children," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Attacks targeted several areas of the city, with 34 of the dead in the Tareq al-Bab area alone.
Aleppo has been divided between regime and rebel-held areas since opposition fighters launched a massive offensive in the city in mid-2012.

Fierce fighting between the two sides has left swathes of the historic city in ruins.
The Observatory said 10 of those killed yesterday were jihadists from the Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Nusra Front, who were in their headquarters when it was hit. Another 10 bodies could not be identified.
In December, government warplanes launched a sustained blitz on the city that killed hundreds of people, the Observatory said, most of them civilians.

Regime forces recently launched an offensive on rebel-held areas in the east of the city, with Syrian Defence Minister General Fahd al-Freij visiting parts of northern Aleppo province on Friday.
State news agency SANA cited Freij as saying he was offering thanks for the army's "great victories and their liberation of many areas in Aleppo."
The latest aerial assault came the day after Syrian government and opposition delegations wrapped up peace talks in Geneva.
The 10 days of talks yielded no tangible results and the government team said it was unsure whether it would return to the negotiating table.
The Observatory said yesterday the overall death toll from Syria's civil war had topped 136,000, with January one of the bloodiest months since the conflict erupted in March 2011.

The war started after security forces cracked down on peaceful anti-government demonstrations, sparking an armed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
The Britain-based monitor said the toll at the end of January was at least 136,227.