Photo by Rami Zayat/Reuters
At least 21 people — including women and children — were killed, and 100 wounded when Syrian government aircraft dropped barrel bombs on the Islamic State-controlled city of al-Bab, northeast of Aleppo, activists said Sunday.A series of 10 airstrikes, conducted by military helicopters and warplanes, started late Saturday and continued through Sunday morning, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring groupGraphic video shared by local al-Bab activists shows workers sifting through the aftermath of the attack and uncovering several small children and body parts buried among the rubble.Videos shared by Al-Bab-based activists in the aftermath of the attack show rescuers working through rubble.Ghosts of Aleppo. Watch the VICE News documentary here.The Aleppo Media Center said the death toll reached 30, and that 85 were reported wounded. VICE News could not independently verify the conflicting casualty figures.Syrian President Bashar Assad has regularly ordered strikes against Islamic State targets and any others opposed to the government, including Syrian rebel groups that have sought to oust the leader during more than three years of ongoing civil war in the country. Barrel bombs — rudimentary explosive devices made from oil drums stuffed with explosives and shrapnel — have destroyed vast swathes of Aleppo.Separate airstrikes that began in early August are being simultaneously conducted by a US-led coalition against Islamic State insurgents in Iraq and Syria. The US maintains it does not coordinate these attacks or cooperate in any manner with Assad, who has been accused of indiscriminately killing his own people and using chemical weapons against them.Since the 2011 uprising against Assad, Syria's civil war has claimed the lives of at least 190,000 people, according to a conservative UN estimate. At least 9,000 children are among the dead.The Islamic State. Watch the VICE News documentary here.Follow Liz Fields on Twitter: @lianzifields
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