A large explosion reportedly caused by rockets has hit a central
neighborhood of the Syrian city of Aleppo, local state-run television
said, blaming the violence on a ‘terrorist group’. A TV report showed a
building collapsed into rubble.
The number of casualties was not immediately known, though the TV
report showed crowds of people pulling bloodied bodies from the rubble,
Reuters said.
A video broadcast on Syrian state TV showed the
collapsed floors of the targeted building in a government-controlled
area of the city, AP reported.
While state-run news agency SANA
generally blames such violence on ‘terrorists,’ a word used by the
regime to describe rebel forces, anti-Assad activist groups along with
Local Coordination Committees of Syria accused the government of
launching the attack.
The latest news from Aleppo coincides
with reports from activists in another Syrian city, where an explosion
near Al-Husain mosque in Deraa,
south of Damascus, reportedly caused several deaths and injuries.
The situation in Aleppo has deteriorated in the past few days. On January 15,
two rocket explosions hit the University of Aleppo, killing at least 87 people and injuring 160.
