The Syrian government killed at least 45 citizens and wounded some 175 in recent air strikes on a northern Syrian city controlled by the Islamic State group, residents and a monitoring group said on Friday.
On Thursday, residential and industrial areas in the city of al Bab and neighboring Qabaseen, northeast of Aleppo, were struck by barrel bombs dropped from helicopters and airplanes, locals told Reuters.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said seven children and two women were among those killed, adding that some 470 strikes in the last 72 hours have killed at least 100 civilians in rebel-held areas in Syria, including in towns in the eastern suburbs of the capital, Damascus, Reuters said.
Eleven of those, mostly women and children, were killed by President Bashar al-Assad loyalist snipers when they were trying to leave the rebel-held neighborhood of Zebdin near Damascus, according to the Observatory.
"There have been unprecedented air raids across Syria in the last three days where the regime seeks to make gains on the ground to improve its negotiating stance in future political talks," Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Observatory, told Reuters.
Syrian activists accused the government of killing more civilians than jihadists in the raids, AFP reported.
So far, during the country's multi-sided civil war, some 200,000 people have been killed, and half of the country's population has been displaced.
U.S. and Kurdish forces also continue to battle the Islamic State group in northeast Syria. The Observatory said around 60 jihadists were killed on Thursday by Kurdish forces fighting in the north.
Islamic State militants captured a Jordanian pilot earlier this week when his plane crashed near the Syrian town of Raqqa, and while militants claim they shot it down, Jordan's military disputes such claims.
