Warplane targets bakery in Syria’s Aleppo, killing six

By Khaled Suleiman

ALEPPO, Syria

Six civilians were killed and another five injured Wednesday by an airstrike that targeted a bakery in Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo, according to a local civil defense source.

Babiris Meshaal, a civil defense official based in Aleppo, told Anadolu Agency that a warplane had struck a bakery in the city’s opposition-held Maadi district, in front of which people had lined up to buy to bread.

Meshaal could not say whether the aircraft that carried out the attack was Russian or Syrian.

Since Sept. 19, when the Syrian regime announced the end of a week-long truce sponsored by Washington and Moscow, regime and Russian warplanes have pounded opposition-held parts of Aleppo.

Scores of local civilians have reportedly been killed or injured in the attacks, which remain ongoing.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

The Syrian Center for Policy Research, a Beirut-based NGO, has put the total death toll from the five-year conflict at more than 470,000.