BEIRUT – Six children from the same family were killed in an air strike by government forces on a village in the northern province of Aleppo, a monitoring group said on Wednesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, citing local residents, said three boys and three girls from the Muslim family died in Tuesday's raid on Wahshiyeh. The village is located in a rebel-held area of Aleppo province that has come under constant aerial bombardment since late last year. Rights groups have repeatedly slammed the regime for its air strikes, saying them fail to discriminate between military targets and civilian areas. Also on Tuesday evening, a 15-year-old child was killed in an air raid on Latamneh in the central province of Hama and a seven-year-old girl died in army shelling near Jisr Al-Shughur in Idlib province, northwest Syria, said the Observatory. And in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, which is controlled by the jihadist Islamic State, a regime air raid killed a six-year-old girl, it said. Syria's conflict has killed 170,000 people, including more than 9,000 children, according to the Observatory, and forced nearly half the country's population to flee their homes. Meanwhile, rebel-held eastern Damascus was hit by its fiercest fighting in months Tuesday. In eastern Damascus, the fiercest fighting in months raged between opposition and regime fighters at the entrance to the rebel-held district of Jobar, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Jobar is under the control of opposition fighters, but is surrounded by army-held areas that lead into the capital, Assad's stronghold and the seat of his power. Tuesday's fighting came a week after rebels broke across army lines and seized a checkpoint, inching ever closer to the strategic Abbasiyeen square. The army then launched a counter-offensive, and recaptured the checkpoint. The air force pounded Jobar, while the army and pro-regime paramilitary forces sent in reinforcements to try to push back the rebel fighters. – Agencies
