BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 13 people were killed and dozens were injured by a car bomb on Thursday which targeted a building used by a rebel group in the northern Syrian town of Azaz near the Turkish border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Yasser al-Yousef, from the political office of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group which controls the building, put the death toll higher at 25 and said 13 of the dead were Nour al-Din al-Zinki fighters.

It said the car bomb targeted a security office belonging to the group.

Azaz, controlled by rebel groups, has been the scene of infighting between the various insurgent groups.</s>BEIRUT — Intensive bombings pummeled Syria's rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of the city of Aleppo on Friday, residents and rescuers said, hitting an area housing several hospitals and sending the chief of a pediatrics clinic in a frantic search for a place to move his young patients.

Earlier Friday, airstrikes on a village in the rural Aleppo province killed seven members of the same family, including four children, opposition activists said.

The attacks mark the fourth day of renewed assault by Syrian government warplanes on eastern Aleppo districts, a rebel-held enclave of 275,000 people. The onslaught began with a Russian announcement of its own offensive on the northern rebel-controlled Idlib province and the central Homs province.

So far, more than 100 people have been killed across northern Syria since Tuesday.

A physician who identified himself as Dr. Hatem, the head of the only pediatric hospital remaining in besieged rebel-held part of Aleppo, said his facility has been targeted once more on Friday, causing damages to its exterior. The hospital was also hit during a wave of airstrikes on the complex housing four hospitals on Wednesday.

"Now it is being bombed ... I am sorry ... I have to go to transfer the children" to a safe area, he said in a text message. He uses his first name fearing for his family's safety.

Another Aleppo hospital in a different neighborhood also came under intense bombing late Thursday, he said, though no one was wounded.

Many hospitals and clinics in the besieged area have moved their operations underground after months of relentless bombings and airstrikes.

The city of Aleppo, once Syria's commercial hub, has been divided since 2012, with the eastern half in rebel hands and the western half controlled by government forces.

Ibrahim al-Haj, a member of the Syria Civil Defense rescuers in Aleppo said the city "is a mess." The group of rescuers and first responders said they were struggling to put out fires set off by the bombings in at least 10 different areas of eastern Aleppo.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the strike that killed the seven from one family took place in southwestern Aleppo. Syrian Civil Defense posted photographs online showing children's bodies covered with dust and blood.</s>BEIRUT (AP) — Intensive bombings pummeled Syria’s rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of the city of Aleppo on Friday, residents and rescuers said, hitting an area housing several hospitals and sending the chief of a pediatrics clinic in a frantic search for a place to move his young patients.

Earlier Friday, airstrikes on a village in the rural Aleppo province killed seven members of the same family, including four children, opposition activists said.

The attacks mark the fourth day of renewed assault by Syrian government warplanes on eastern Aleppo districts, a rebel-held enclave of 275,000 people. The onslaught began with a Russian announcement of its own offensive on the northern rebel-controlled Idlib province and the central Homs province.

So far, more than 100 people have been killed across northern Syria since Tuesday.

A physician who identified himself as Dr. Hatem, the head of the only pediatric hospital remaining in besieged rebel-held part of Aleppo, said his facility has been targeted once more on Friday, causing damages to its exterior. The hospital was also hit during a wave of airstrikes on the complex housing four hospitals on Wednesday.

“Now it is being bombed … I am sorry … I have to go to transfer the children” to a safe area, he said in a text message. He uses his first name fearing for his family’s safety.

Another Aleppo hospital in a different neighborhood also came under intense bombing late Thursday, he said, though no one was wounded.

Many hospitals and clinics in the besieged area have moved their operations underground after months of relentless bombings and airstrikes.

The city of Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial hub, has been divided since 2012, with the eastern half in rebel hands and the western half controlled by government forces.

Ibrahim al-Haj, a member of the Syria Civil Defense rescuers in Aleppo said the city “is a mess.” The group of rescuers and first responders said they were struggling to put out fires set off by the bombings in at least 10 different areas of eastern Aleppo.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the strike that killed the seven from one family took place in southwestern Aleppo. Syrian Civil Defense posted photographs online showing children’s bodies covered with dust and blood.</s>BEIRUT At least 10 people were killed and dozens were injured by a car bomb on Thursday which targeted a building used by a rebel group in the northern Syrian town of Azaz near the Turkish border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.</s>BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian opposition activists are reporting heavy bombardment of besieged rebel-held neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo saying at least six people have been killed.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian government warplanes and artillery struck more than 20 neighborhoods in east Aleppo killing six people.

The Aleppo Media Council, an activist collective, said 15 people, including children, were killed in Saturday’s violence in the country’s largest city and former commercial center.

Saturday was the fourth day of renewed assaults by Syrian warplanes on eastern Aleppo districts, a rebel-held enclave of 275,000 people. The onslaught began Tuesday, when Syria’s ally Russia announced its own offensive on the northern rebel-controlled Idlib province and Homs province in central Syria.</s>(CNN) More than 1,000 people have died in airstrikes and shelling in the Syrian city of Aleppo since a short-lived ceasefire broke down 60 days ago, according to a UK-based monitoring group.

The figure includes deaths in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, in government-controlled western Aleppo and in the surrounding countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday.

The group's tally comes as Russian-backed Syrian government forces once again pummel eastern Aleppo.

The weeklong ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia collapsed in the early hours of September 19 , according to the observatory.

Of the 1,086 dead the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented across the city since then, 231 were children and 98 were women.

The highest number of deaths occurred in eastern Aleppo neighborhoods, where airstrikes by Russian and regime planes killed 509 people, the monitoring group said. Artillery shelling was responsible for another 47 deaths.

Russian and government airstrikes killed 300 people, including 70 children and 34 women, in Aleppo's countryside, the group said.

Shelling by rebel factions killed another 225 people, including 59 children and 32 women, in regime-held western neighborhoods, it said.

More than 4,000 people were injured on both sides of the war-torn northern city over the same period, the group said.

The Aleppo Media Center activist group and medical crews reported that 46 people were killed and 75 injured Friday in airstrikes and shelling in the city and surrounding countryside, with the activists describing the fighting as one of the bloodiest days yet.

Syrian jets dropped cluster bombs on the eastern Aleppo neighborhoods of al-Sukari and al-Fardous, the Aleppo Media Center said. It also reported artillery shelling there and in two other neighborhoods.

An activist in Binnish, in Syria's northeastern Idlib province, said Russian and Syrian warplanes had bombarded half a dozen towns in Idlib since midnight.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA said "terrorist rocket attacks" Friday had killed five people and injured 17 in residential areas of western Aleppo.

Syria's grinding five-year conflict has devastated the city, divided between government-controlled areas in the west and rebel positions in the east.

The regime's siege of rebel-held neighborhoods has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe as food, water and medical supplies run low.

Rebels took control of eastern Aleppo in 2014, and government forces have besieged the area, battering it from above with the help of Russian air power. The government says the rebels are terrorists who must be driven out.

Moscow has sought to distance itself from the latest blitz, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov saying Wednesday that the Russian air force had not carried out the Aleppo strikes, according to state-run news agency Tass.</s>BEIRUT -- Airstrikes pounded rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Thursday, killing more than 20 people and hitting a water pumping station on the third day of a renewed air campaign on the besieged territory, Syrian activists and rescue workers said.

The Russian military meanwhile said airstrikes in the rebel-held province of Idlib earlier this week killed at least 30 members of an al-Qaida-linked group, including three commanders. The strikes are part of a major Syrian and Russian offensive begun earlier this week on opposition-held areas that has killed dozens of people.

In one area, volunteer first responders dug through the rubble for four hours before pulling out a 6-year-old who was still alive. The child's mother was killed in the strikes, said Ibrahim al-Haj, a spokesman for the rescuers, known as the Syrian Civil Defense.

The activist-run Public Services Authority said the Bab al-Nairab water plant in Aleppo was struck with a barrel bomb. Spokesman Ahmad al-Shami said the plant was damaged but is still operating.

"This regime uses any means to add pressure to civilians. It has bombed bakeries and hospitals and has not made an exception for water and electricity," he said.

Medical facilities have repeatedly come under attack during the Syrian conflict, with 126 such cases this year, according to the World Health Organization.

Doctors Without Borders said the children's hospital and a specialized surgical hospital were hit in Wednesday's strikes.

"Hospital staff managed to move children -- including prematurely born babies -- from cots and incubators to the basement of the building in order to shelter them from the bombing," said the aid group, which sponsors both hospitals.

The city's central blood bank also was hit Wednesday

The Oxfam aid group said the more than 250,000 residents of eastern Aleppo have limited food and clean water as winter approaches and are at risk of disease outbreaks.

No U.N. aid has reached eastern Aleppo since July, and the U.N. has warned that supplies will run out this week. Oxfam said it helped move a generator to the besieged area on Wednesday to improve the water supply.

"Clean water is vital, but it won't stop starvation, never mind protect people from indiscriminate aerial attacks," said Andy Baker, who is leading Oxfam's Syria response.

The Syrian Civil Defense said 28 people were killed in and around Aleppo on Thursday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of local activists, put the death toll at 25.

At least 70 people were killed in northern Syria on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Russia says it is not bombing Aleppo as part of the offensive announced this week, but is instead targeting insurgents in Idlib and the central Homs province.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the strikes targeting al-Qaida-linked Jabhat Fatah al-Sham -- the militant group formerly known as the Nusra Front -- took place in Idlib on Tuesday and were launched from Russia's only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, which recently deployed to the Mediterranean Sea.

He said three leading members of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham -- Muhammad Helala, Abu Jaber Harmuja and Abul Baha al-Asfari -- were among those killed. He said al-Asfari had overseen the group's attempts to break the siege of Aleppo.

The group, which renounced its ties to al-Qaida in July, has been fighting alongside the rebels.

Al-Asfari had led a moderate rebel group in 2013, and it was not clear whether or when he joined the al-Qaida-linked group.

An opposition media group known as All4Syria reported that the two other named militants were killed Tuesday in an airstrike in the village of Kfar Jalis, in the Idlib countryside, that also killed six civilians. The Observatory's chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said the airstrike on the jihadi stronghold killed six leading militants, without identifying them.

The same village was struck Thursday, the Observatory said, killing six civilians from the same family.

The Russian Defense Ministry said long-range bombers dispatched from Russia fired cruise missiles at Islamic State and al-Qaida targets in Syria during a 7,000-mile flight. It said fighter jets from the carrier and an air base in Syria also took part in the strikes. It did not say where the strikes took place, but said they destroyed command facilities, ammunition depots and weapons factories.

Months of negotiations between the U.S. and Russia failed to cement a long-term cease-fire in Aleppo, which has become the focus of the war between Syrian President Bashar Assad and rebels fighting to topple him.

Information for this article was contributed by Vladimir Isachenkov and Nataliya Vasilyeva of The Associated Press.</s>The U.N. humanitarian adviser said on Friday the besieged population of eastern Aleppo faced a "very bleak moment" with no food or medical supplies, winter approaching, and an increasingly fierce attack by Syrian and allied forces.

Violence also escalated in and around Damascus, where government forces fiercely bombarded the city's rebel-held eastern outskirts and rebels fired rockets into the government-controlled city center, witnesses said.

Syrian government forces and allied militia renewed a heavy bombardment of rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Tuesday after a pause of several weeks. Russia, whose air force is bombing in support of Assad, says it has not taken part in the latest Aleppo attack. Moscow has, however, escalated its role in the war, launching attacks on other rebel-held areas from the sea.

The government, backed by the Russian air force and Shi'ite militias, has this year steadily closed in on eastern Aleppo, first besieging a population estimated by the United Nations to number 270,000 and then launching a major assault in September.

While the government side has unleashed enormous firepower, its advances into rebel-held areas of Aleppo since September have been limited. The rebel forces are deeply entrenched and say they are well prepared for urban war.

Fighting was reported on the southern and eastern periphery of the rebel-held area on Friday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that reports on the war, said Friday's clashes were the fiercest this week.

Sources on both sides said pro-government militias were mobilized in large numbers.

An official in the Levant Front rebel group, which fights under the Free Syrian Army banner, told Reuters that the pro-government forces appeared to be seeking to advance along a highway that bisects the rebel-held part of Aleppo.

His group lost a commander along with a number of his men in the fighting, he said. "The militias are coming in strongly in the areas they are trying to storm. There are few frontlines in Syria in general at the moment, most of the focus of the regime and militias is in Aleppo," he said.

A source on the government side confirmed large mobilization by pro-Assad forces. The source said the shelling of recent days was in preparation for ground operations. A media unit run by Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shi'ite group fighting in support of Assad, said the army had made progress in northeastern Aleppo.

Rebels repelled an attempt by pro-government militias to advance in the Sheikh Saeed area on the southern periphery of eastern Aleppo after heavy bombardment including barrel bombs, Al-Farouk Abu Bakr, a commander in the Ahrar al-Sham group, told Reuters. Syrian military officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

In the four days since bombardment resumed on eastern Aleppo, the Observatory says it has documented 65 deaths and hundreds of injuries in east Aleppo, and four deaths and dozens of injuries in government-held west Aleppo as a result of rebel rocket fire.

Aleppo has been the main battleground in the war this year. Capturing eastern Aleppo would be a major prize for Assad.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the east Aleppo assault since September, according to U.N. figures and rescue workers. Rebel shelling, meanwhile, killed dozens of people in government-held western Aleppo during a failed counter attack.

State media said shelling killed two more people in western Aleppo on Friday.

Mohamad Abboush, an east Aleppo resident, told Reuters an air strike killed two of his relatives, a 45-year-old uncle and a 12-year-old cousin, on Friday morning. As they sought out medical care for other relatives wounded in the attack, he said they found one hospital in ruins and another in flames.

The air strike had completely destroyed a four-storey apartment block where his relatives had been living in the Tariq al-Bab neighborhood, he said. The survivors had been taken to houses in another area, but nowhere was safe.

"The whole of Aleppo is being bombed," he said.

The Observatory said government forces had targeted areas near three hospitals to keep them out of service.

The government has previously denied such accusations.

In the rebel-held area of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, a witness said the shelling and air strikes ongoing since Thursday evening were the worst they had seen for at least a year.

The Observatory said air strikes and shelling on the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma have in the past 24 hours killed at least 22 people - 10 of them children - and injured dozens.

The death toll was expected to rise due to the serious nature of many of the injuries.

Witnesses and the Observatory say rockets fired from rebel areas near the city hit central Damascus on Thursday and Friday. Syrian state media said one women died and others were injured in rockets fired on residential areas of Damascus on Friday.</s>The bombardment of eastern Aleppo restarted on Tuesday after a weeks-long pause, part of a wider military escalation by the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, against insurgents.

Moscow is using an aircraft carrier and missiles fired from another warship against targets around Syria but says it is not bombing Aleppo. Syria's government said on Tuesday it was striking what it called "terrorist strongholds" in the city.

The United Nations says 250,000 civilians remain in Aleppo's opposition-controlled neighborhoods, effectively under siege since the army, aided by Iranian-backed militias and Russian jets, cut off the last road into rebel districts in early July.

Frequent air strikes on hospitals, and the disruption and pollution of water supplies, have worsened the humanitarian crisis. Medicines, food and fuel are all severely depleted.

"There is only enough to keep the bakeries going to give people at least some bread. People are only getting about 15 percent of what they need," Brita Hagi Hassan, president of the city council for opposition-held Aleppo, told Reuters.

Hassan is outside eastern Aleppo and cannot return because of the siege but he is still running the council remotely, he said.

International charity Oxfam said it had moved a large electricity generator to the Suleiman al-Halabi water station that is located on the frontline between east and west Aleppo and still serves both sides of the city under an agreement.

It said all other aid to the besieged area remains cut off.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that monitors the war, said shelling and air strikes from helicopters and jets hit the eastern half of the city, causing severe damage. Air strikes also hit rebel-held areas west and south of Aleppo.

Shelling of government-held western Aleppo by rebels during a failed counter-attack they staged earlier this month killed dozens of people, the United Nations said.

Syria's civil war pits President Bashar al-Assad against mainly Sunni rebels seeking to oust him. It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced around half the country's pre-war population since it began in 2011.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports a car bomb has killed at least ten people in the city of Azaz, Aleppo Governorate.