By Al Arabiya with AFP , 09 September 2012 – Syrian warplanes bombed residential districts of Aleppo on Sunday, killing and wounding dozens of people, opposition activists in Syria’s largest city said.

They said the air raid destroyed a residential building in the Hananu neighbourhood, one of several in eastern Aleppo under insurgent control. The death toll was not immediately clear but bodies and wounded people were being dug out from the rubble.

Video footage from the area, taken by activists in the almost 18-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, showed scores of people searching and digging in the rubble of a flattened building.

Several houses were destroyed in the shelling of the northern city’s Midan district, which is under regime control, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Fierce battles broke out on the edge of Midan on Saturday, after rebels tried to take over the district from their stronghold in Bustan al-Basha.

A main water pipe in Bustan al-Basha was destroyed, either by air strikes or the fighting, and water shortages were reported by residents in Aleppo.

In the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, the army shelled the neighborhood of Jubaila, while two people were killed at a checkpoint in Hamdaniyeh district and a third was shot dead by a sniper in Jura.

Shelling attacks were also reported in the northwestern province of Idlib and in the southern province of Daraa, but there were no reports of casualties thus far, the Observatory said.

The violence followed a bloody day in which as many as 172 people have been killed by the fire of Syrian forces across the country on Saturday, including 89 in Aleppo, Al Arabiya reported citing activists at the Local Coordination Committees.

As many as 17 dead bodies of executed Syrians were found in Aleppo, activists at the General revolution Commission said.

As many as 38 people were killed by shelling attacks on the districts of Shaar, Halwani and Sid al-Luz on Saturday, the Observatory said. The names of 17 have been documented thus far.

Assad’s forces have preferred to use air power and artillery to hit areas where rebels are positioned and infantry raids normally occur only once many have fled. Activists said they feared for civilian inhabitants in the latest offensive.

Assad’s use of military force to quell an uprising that began almost 18 months ago as a peaceful pro-democracy movement has cost him many allies in the Arab and Muslim world and caused a trickle of defections from Syrian government and army ranks.