IS destroys infamous Syria prison as regime bombing kills scores

Islamic State group jihadists demolished a notorious government prison in the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Saturday, as barrel bombs dropped by regime helicopters killed more than 70 civilians in Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS planted explosives that “largely destroyed” the Palmyra jail, which was for decades a symbol of abuses meted out on regime opponents. The deaths occurred in two separate incidents when helicopters dropped explosives-filled barrels. One barrel hit the rebel-held Shaar neighborhood of the city of Aleppo, killing at least 12 people, most of them from the same family. The other attack was far deadlier, hitting a busy market known as Souk al-Hal in the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab in Aleppo’s countryside.

[It is] totally unacceptable that the Syrian air force attacks its own territory in an indiscriminate way, killing its own citizens, as it brutally happened today in Aleppo.

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 59 people were killed and dozens wounded, calling it the one of the worst massacres perpetrated by President Bashar Assad’s army this year. It said the number of dead likely would rise because many of the wounded were in critical condition. Al-Bab is controlled by the Islamic State group, which also confirmed the attack in a statement posted on Twitter. The Syrian military has suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks in northern Syria recently as insurgents captured the city of Idlib and almost all of Idlib province. Opponents of President Bashar al-Assad welcomed on social media the destruction of the long-feared prison at Palmyra, which IS seized 10 days ago after government forces pulled out.

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