Battle of Aleppo

At least 14 civilians were killed when missiles hit a children’s hospital, a school and other facilities in the rebel-held Syrian town of Azaz near the Turkish border on Monday, a medic and two residents reported.

More than 500 people, including dozens of civilians, have been killed since a major Russian-backed regime offensive in Syria's Aleppo province began this month, a monitor said Feb. 10.

Russian airstrikes in Syria should be halted, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Feb. 5, adding that humanitarian access talks are ongoing.

"Russia is using what are called free-fall bombs - dumb bombs," he told reporters at the State Department. "They are not precision bombs, and there are civilians, including women and children, being killed in large numbers as a consequence."

Syrian government forces backed by Russian airpower and allied militias opened a new front against rebel fighters south of second city Aleppo on Oct. 16.

The fresh offensive came as a monitoring group said that more than 250,000 people have now been killed since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

A suicide bomber from Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Al-Nusra Front, killed 25 soldiers and fighters loyal to President Bashar al-Assad's regime in an attack on an army base in government-held western Aleppo on July 6, a Britain-based monitoring group said.

Two coalitions of Syrian rebels battled to advance in government-held western Aleppo on July 4, seizing an army barracks in one district, but being pushed back elsewhere.

The fighting in the country's former economic powerhouse is some of the fiercest since the Syrian conflict arrived in the northern city in mid-2012.

Syrian insurgents led by Islamist groups began a major offensive to gain full control of the divided northern city of Aleppo, a monitor and rebels said on July 2.

The fall of Syria's main commercial hub would be a major blow for President Bashar al-Assad, restricting his control mainly to a belt of territory stretching north from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast. 

Seventy countries across the planet united June 18 to express outrage over the Syrian regime's systematic use of barrel bombs and to demand an end to the deadly, indiscriminate attacks.

Rebel fire killed eight people in Syria's second city Aleppo June 18, the latest in a spate of civilian deaths in government-held districts this week, a monitoring group said.

Rebel rocket fire killed at least 34 civilians in Aleppo in one of the bloodiest days of the conflict for government-held areas of Syria's second city, a monitoring group said June 16.

Twelve children were among the dead as Islamist rebel factions pounded western neighbourhoods of the city with more than 300 rockets on June 15, the Syrian Observatory for Human Right said.