ALEPPO – Air strikes on rebel-held areas of Syria’s second city Aleppo and a town to its west killed at least 19 people on Tuesday, emergency workers said. The strikes are the latest in a surge of violence in and around the city that has severely tested a February 27 ceasefire.
Fourteen civilians were killed in the strikes on rebel-held eastern districts of Aleppo city, the civil defence — known as White Helmets — said.
Five of their own rescue workers were killed when their headquarters in the town of Al-Atarib, controlled by Islamist rebels, was hit by an air strike, the group said on Twitter.
It was not immediately clear whether the strike on Al-Atarib, 35 kilometres (20 miles) from Aleppo, was carried out by the Syrian air force or its Russian ally.
Fighting has surged on several fronts in Aleppo province, which is criss-crossed with supply routes that are strategic for practically all of Syria’s warring sides.
Once Syria’s commercial hub, Aleppo has been divided between rebel control in the east and government forces in the west since 2012.
In the rebel-held Fardos neighbourhood, an AFP correspondent saw a youth being helped down a rubble-strewn street with blood streaming from his head and leg.
Violence has rocked the divided city since Friday, with at least 97 civilians killed by artillery or rocket fire and air strikes.
 

Anti-government fighter hides his face after his friend was shot by a Syrian army sniper. 

Two air strikes and at least one rocket attack staged overnight against an opposition-held area west of Aleppo killed five rescue workers, who appeared to have been knowingly targeted, a monitoring group and colleagues nearby reported.
The raids hit a center for the Syrian Civil Defence, known as the “White Helmets”, in the town of Atareb, some 25 km (15 miles) west of Aleppo.
The recent weeks have witnessed grave escalation in fighting in Aleppo province, as a partial truce brokered the United States and Russia in February has all but collapsed.
The Civil Defence corps work as first responders in opposition-held territory where medical infrastructure has broken down.
“The targeting was very precise,” Radi Saad, a Civil Defence worker based in northwestern Syria, told Reuters via internet.
“They were in the center and ready to respond. When they heard warplanes in the area they did not think they would be the target.”
Another Civil Defence member, Ahmad Sheikho, said five rescue workers had died and two were seriously wounded. Ambulances and cars belonging to doctors were also damaged.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said at least five had been killed, confirming that the center appeared to have been deliberately targeted.
In the past 24 hours, fighting in Aleppo has killed at least 30 people including at least eight children, the Observatory added.
The fighting severely threatens the February ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia and comes as UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva stall.
More than 270,000 people have been killed in Syria and millions been forced from their homes since the conflict erupted in 2011.

Source: AFP, English Al-Awsat, 26 APRIL 2016