Russian airstrikes kill 11 in Syria’s Aleppo

By Halit Suleyman

ALEPPO, Syria (AA) – Eleven people were killed and dozens others injured Wednesday when Russian warplanes struck opposition-held areas of Syria’s northwestern Aleppo province, a local civil defense official said.

The airstrikes targeted Aleppo city’s Al-Ansari district, leaving eight dead and another 25 injured, Ibrahim Abu Leith, an Aleppo-based civil defense official, told Anadolu Agency.

Civil defense teams rushed to the scene in hopes of rescuing people trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings, Abu Leith said.

In Aleppo’s Atarib district, meanwhile, three people were killed and another 14 injured in separate Russian airstrikes, Abu Leith said, adding that another four people were hurt when two civil defense vehicles were targeted while delivering aid to the stricken area.

According to Abu Leith, Russian and Syrian regime warplanes have recently stepped up attacks against residential areas of Aleppo’s opposition-held Al-Sukkari, Maadi, Bustan al-Qasr and Al-Qadi districts.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to UN figures.

However, the Syrian Center for Policy Research, an NGO, has put the total death toll from conflict -- now in its sixth year -- at more than 470,000.