DHAKA: A string of government airstrikes on rebel-held areas in northern Syria on Saturday killed at least 44 people, activists said, as Al-Qaeda-linked rebels captured one of the country`s oil field in the east.

Mr Rami Abdurrahman, the director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the attack on the rebel-held town of al-Bab near the northern city of Aleppo is the deadliest of the three raids. He said that strike killed 22.

Fighter jets also bombed two rebel-held districts of Aleppo, Syria`s largest city. Government warplanes missed their target in the Halwaniyeh neighborhood and sent bombs into a crowded vegetable market, killing 15 people, Mr Abdurrahman said. Seven people died in a third airstrike in the Karam el-Beik district, according to the activist group. The Observatory has been documenting the conflict by relying on a network of activists on the ground.

Air power has been Syrian President Bashar al-Assad`s greatest advantage in the civil war. Over the past year, his forces have exploited it in a wide-ranging offensive to push back rebel gains in the north and around the capital, Damascus.

Source: straitstimes.com
BDST: 0857 HRS, NOV 24, 2013