Over 90 killed in Syria by regime airstrikes: monitor

At least 94 civilians, including 20 children, have been killed by Syrian army airstrikes across the country over the past two days, a monitoring group reported on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead also included 16 women and 58 men.

The attacks involved the use of missiles and bomb-loaded barrels against rebel-held areas on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, the northern province of Aleppo, the north-eastern province of al-Hassakeh, Deir al-Zour in the east and the north-western province of Idlib, according to the watchdog.  

At least 285 barrel bombs were dropped by regime helicopters during those attacks, the Britain-based Observatory said.

The Syrian government has in recent years stepped up air raids using barrel bombs against the rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned the use of such improvised weapons, saying they are indiscriminate, causing many civilian casualties, and that their use constitutes a war crime. 

Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the Observatory, said that al-Assad's regime is "punishing" civilians who are living in rebel-held areas after his overstretched troops suffered losses to the rebels in the past month.

"The civilians residing in rebel-controlled areas have decided to stay there because they have no money or other resources to leave for safer areas," Abdel-Rahman told dpa. 

"They are living now under a constant threat of death from the regime planes, which do not differentiate between civilians and fighters."

Last week, an Islamist-rebel coalition led by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front seized the last government holdout in Idlib, a neighbouring province of al-Assad's coastal stronghold of Latakia.

On May 20, the Islamic State extremist militia overran the historic city of Palmyra, raising international concerns over the fate of the city's artefacts.

The al-Qaeda breakaway group has previously looted and demolished ancient sites in neighbouring Iraq.

At least 220,000 people are estimated to have been killed in Syria's conflict since it started in March 2011, according to activists.