Syria accused of indiscriminate aerial attacks

Syrian government troops carried out hundreds of indiscriminate aerial attacks in the past year, most with barrel bombs, in defiance of a United Nations Security Council demand to stop, a US rights group said, calling for a UN arms embargo.

The barrel bombs, containers packed with explosives and projectiles that are dropped from helicopters, have killed thousands of civilians, Human Rights Watch said, adding that Syrian forces had carried out at least 1,450 air attacks in south-western Daraa and northern Aleppo in the past 11 months.

“The majority appear to be barrel bomb attacks,” Human Rights Watch deputy Middle East and North Africa director Nadim Houry told a news conference.