Syrian air strikes pummel Aleppo. Time for an international no-fly zone?
Air strikes on Aleppo in northern Syria have killed hundreds of people in the past week. Regime forces are using "barrel bombs" on targets that reportedly include markets, hospitals, and schools.
Air strikes on Aleppo in northern Syria have killed hundreds of people in the past week. Regime forces are using "barrel bombs" on targets that reportedly include markets, hospitals, and schools.
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Much of the northern Syria city of Aleppo, part of which rebels once optimistically called "Free Syria聽territory,"聽has been reduced to rubble by a particularly fierce government bombing campaign.聽
By most accounts, hundreds have been killed in the offensive, which has been going on for more than a week now. Civilian targets such as schools, hospitals, and markets have reportedly been targeted.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based Syrian opposition group, said at least 65 were killed when "explosive-laden barrel bombs" were dropped on a market area聽Sunday, making it the deadliest day of the offensive, according to the Associated Press.
The use of barrel bombs is a particularly lethal development. They contain "hundreds of pounds of explosives and shrapnel that include metal shards and iron nails," according to a New York Times report from Dec. 16, one of the early days of the operation. Human rights groups have described them as "a particularly insidious weapon that kills indiscriminately." CNN reports that the bombs "can level entire buildings with one hit."
Eliot Higgins, who is behind聽the prominent Syria blog Brown Moses, described聽the evolution of the barrel bomb to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
Mr. Higgins said that the barrel bombs may have been improvised in order to allow regime forces to use cargo helicopters in battle, one of several ways they have changed tactics during Syria's civil war.
The rebels have long used improvised weapons, given their limited resources, but the regime's turn to "do-it-yourself" weapons is much more recent, CBC reports. Ole Solvang, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, said that the use of barrel bombs may be an effort to avoid depleting its stock of conventional weapons.聽
鈥淥ver the last year or so the Syrian air force has been conducting attacks daily all over Syria,鈥� Mr. Solvang said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 difficult to say how many bombs they have. They must start getting concerned at some point they would be running out.鈥�
The relentless air offensive has renewed calls for world powers to impose a no-fly zone on Syria, a proposal that first appeared in the early days of the anti-government uprising but never gained traction because of Russian opposition, The New York Times reports.