AP, Beirut, 26 July 2014 — Syrian rebels have shot down a helicopter gunship over a slum in the northern city of Aleppo, activists said Saturday in latest Syria news.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the helicopter was shot down with a missile Friday night over a poor area of town known as Camp Nairab.
Camp Nairab is adjacent to the Nairba military airport southeast of the city, where aircraft take off to carry out attacks in northern Syria.
Helicopters are used by Bashar Assad’s forces to drop barrel bombs — crude explosives that have killed thousands of people and caused widespread destruction, especially in Aleppo.
The Observatory said three of the dead were the helicopter’s crew members. Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial capital, has seen heavy fighting since rebels seized part of the city in 2012.
 
Syria’s civil war has killed at least 170,000 people, nearly a third of them civilians, according to activists. Nearly three million Syrians have fled the country.