Russian strikes kill 7 in Syria’s Aleppo: Local sources

By Khaled Suleyman

ALEPPO, Syria (AA) - At least seven civilians were killed Thursday in airstrikes carried out by Russian warplanes in opposition-held parts of Aleppo city and its northern countryside, according to pro-opposition civil-defense sources on the ground.

"Russian fighter jets struck the central Al-Kartaji neighborhood, along with the Haritan and Anadan areas, killing seven civilians," one local civil defense official told Anadolu Agency, adding that the airstrikes had left numerous others injured.

The same source said that local civilian defense teams were now in the process of pulling the dead wounded from under the rubble of flattened buildings.

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

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

The Syrian Center for Policy Research, an NGO, however, has put the death toll from the five-year conflict at as high as 470,000.