AFP/Beirut

Heavy bombardment by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed at least 18 civilians yesterday in a residential district of the northern city of Aleppo, a monitor said.
“Regime forces fired on the Al Shaar neighbourhood in Aleppo city’s east, which is controlled by the opposition, and killed at least 18 civilians,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“A surface-to-surface missile hit the Al Shaar neighbourhood. People started gathering, and that’s when the army fired more missiles at the same area,” he said.
Abdel Rahman said dozens of people were wounded and others left trapped under the rubble.
Chaos reigned as screaming men carried wounded civilians from collapsing buildings.  
“The civil defence came here to pull people out of the rubble, put out fires and save people,” one emergency worker said.
A man standing on the charred carcass of a car held his head in his hands as he stared into the lobby of a partly destroyed building littered with debris.
“This is a public market and all of these people were shopping. Every time he (Assad) suffers a defeat, he takes it out on civilians,” a resident said.
Aleppo, once Syria’s economic powerhouse, has been devastated by fighting since 2012.
It is now divided between government control in the west and opposition control in the east.
Much of Aleppo has been left in ruins as regime forces carry out aerial attacks and rebels retaliate, despite criticism of both sides from humanitarian organisations.
Further east along Syria’s border with Turkey, government bombardment killed five people in Raqa city, the de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS) militant group’s self-declared “caliphate.”
Another 13, including seven children, were killed by regime air strikes on the village of Murat in Deir al-Zor, the oil-rich province controlled mostly by IS.  
And in the northeastern Hasakeh province, four people were killed in twin car bomb attacks on the frontier town of Ras al-Ain, the Observatory and Syria’s official news agency said.  
The Observatory said Kurdish security forces were among the dead.  
Sana said “terrorist suicide bombers... detonated a huge amount of explosives” just outside the town and that another four people were wounded.