BEIRUT — A Syrian human rights group says more than 400 people have been killed during a government bombardment of rebel-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo, and more than one-quarter of the victims are children.
Rami Abdurrahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday they counted 401 people killed in 11 continuous days of government bombing of Syria's largest city and its province, including 117 children.
Abdurrahman said the toll is one of the highest, and with the most civilian casualties, of any government assault in Syria's three-year conflict.
The toll is so high because the government was hurling imprecisely aimed, explosive-laden barrels over residential areas, he said.
In a separate development Wednesday, Iraqi intelligence officials released letters indicating that the shadowy leader of a powerful Al Qaeda group fighting in Syria sought to kidnap United Nations workers and scrawled out plans for his aides to take over in the event of his death.
The officials also released the first known photograph of the Nusra Front leader, Abu Mohammed Golani, the head of one of the most powerful bands of radicals fighting the Syrian government.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights bases its information on a network of activists on the ground. Other rights groups have given much higher numbers of casualties in the Aleppo battle.
The government has not commented on its use of the so-called barrel bombs, nor on why it began intensely targeting Aleppo.
The attack comes weeks before an international conference is expected to bring together Syria's government and opposition groups seeking to overturn the rule of President Bashar Assad.