(MENAFN- Arab News) BEIRUT: Syrian Army airstrikes killed at least 70 people most of them civilians and wounded scores in attacks Saturday in the northern province of Aleppo that struck civilian areas including a packed market in a town held by the Islamic State group activists said.
The deaths occurred in two separate incidents when helicopters dropped explosives-filled barrels. One barrel hit the rebel-held Shaar neighborhood of the city of Aleppo killing at least 12 people most of them from the same family. They included three children and four women according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The other attack was far deadlier hitting a busy market known as Souk Al-Hal in the Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab in Aleppo's countryside. The Observatory said at least 59 people were killed and dozens wounded calling it the one of the worst massacres perpetrated by the regime this year.
Meanwhile Islamic State group militants demolished a notorious government prison in the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Saturday.
In neighboring Iraq government forces retook an area west of the city of Ramadi which IS overran earlier in May. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS planted explosives that 'largely destroyed' the Palmyra jail which was for decades a symbol of abuses.