Syria air raid kills fifteen, rebels attack air base

DAMASCUS: A regime air strike on Aleppo city on Thursday killed at least 15 civilians, including five children, a monitoring group said, as peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi prepared to brief the UN on the Syrian conflict.

The air raid came hours after a large rebel force launched an offensive on one of the few army bases in northwestern Syria still in the hands of loyalist forces and as fighting near Damascus closed the main road to the airport.

"At least 15 people, among them five children and two women, were killed when a warplane dropped two bombs on the Ansari district of Aleppo," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based group said the air strike by a government warplane hit two buildings in Aleppo, Syria's war-torn commercial capital in the north, while videos posted online by activists showed the facades of several apartments blown away.

The videos, which could not immediately be authenticated, showed residents trying to rescue a wounded child and describing how barrel bombs were used in the raid.

Also in the north, several rebel brigades attacked the fortress-like Wadi Daif army base in Idlib province, while the army responded with shelling as fighting raged outside the nearby insurgent-held town of Maaret al-Numan, the Observatory said.

Rebels who control vast swathes of territory in northern Syria have made significant gains in past days, including for the first time shooting down regime's attack aircraft with surface-to-air missiles.

Analysts said the use by the rebels of the advanced weaponry marked a potential turning point in their prolonged war with Assad's forces, in which according to the Observatory more than 40,000 people have died since March 2011.

As the battle raged for the army base, regime warplanes shelled rebel positions around Tishrin dam in Aleppo province, which was captured by the insurgents earlier in the week.

Assad's forces also launched air strikes on rebel positions in orchards extending from Kfar Sousa district in the southwest of Damascus province to Daraya, further away from the city limits, the watchdog said.

Since the end of July, the Syrian regime has used its aerial superiority to try to suppress the growing insurgency, bombing rebel-held areas across the country and causing high casualties.

The regime has been reducing its territorial ambitions to focus on Damascus, central Syria and bastions of Alawites -- the offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs -- as it digs in for a long war, analysts said.

On the diplomatic front, Brahimi was due at 1400 GMT to brief the UN Security Council which remains divided between Western nations and Assad allies Russia and China over the Syrian crisis.

Moscow and Beijing have blocked three Security Council resolutions condemning the Syrian government.

Named after Kofi Annan threw in the towel, Brahimi has twice met with Assad and has held talks with a number of regional leaders in a bid to resolve the crisis.

But he has been less visible since the collapse of a truce he brokered in late October.

Spain meanwhile announced its recognition of the Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate representative of Syria's people, boosting the opposition in its campaign to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government said it had also invited the group's head Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib to visit Madrid.

France was the first Western state to recognise the coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and it was swiftly joined by Britain. Paris has also suggested arming opposition fighters.

But even as international support grew for the opposition, Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused rebels in the field of using young boys to serve as fighters, guards and lookouts in the brutal conflict.

"Children as young as 14 have served in at least three opposition brigades, transporting weapons and supplies and acting as lookouts," the New York-based watchdog said.

"Children as young as 16 have carried arms and taken combat roles against government forces."

It called on rebel commanders to make public commitments to end this practice and to forbid anyone under 18 from serving in military roles, regardless of whether they volunteer. (AFP)