Raids on rebel-held Aleppo districts kill scores of civilians

Air raids on two rebel-held districts of Syria's battleground second city Aleppo on Tuesday killed at least 19 civilians, including three children, activists said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes were carried out by either Russian or government aircraft and that dozens of people were also wounded, some of them critically, in Tariq al-Bab and Al-Sakhur neighborhoods.

An AFP correspondent in eastern districts of Aleppo said there were heavy airstrikes throughout Monday night and into the day on Tuesday on both those districts.

The Britain-based Observatory also said that 12 rebels were killed in Russian airstrikes Tuesday targeting a convoy of anti-government fighters on the city's southern outskirts.

The Observatory's head, Rami Abdel-Rahman, said the convoy was travelling into Aleppo via the Ramussa road, the access route rebels opened in early August into parts of the city they control.

That road has been used to bring in vegetables, gasoline and other goods into eastern Aleppo, marking the end of a three-week government siege of those districts.

Rebels, Islamists and extremists are locked in clashes with government forces on the southern edges of Aleppo in a bid to keep the route open.

The Observatory – which relies on a pro-opposition network of sources inside Syria for its information – says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

More that 290,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with anti-government protests that morphed into a brutal multi-front war.