BEIRUT — Syrian government aircraft dumped barrels packed with explosives on at least four opposition-held neighborhoods of Aleppo on Wednesday, the fourth day of stepped-up airstrikes on the contested northern city, activists said.
The air campaign, which activists say killed more than 100 people in the first three days alone, suggests that Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces are trying to crush opposition in Aleppo ahead of an international peace conference scheduled for late January in Switzerland.
Aleppo, Syria's largest city and once its commercial hub, has been a major front in the country's civil war since the rebels launched an offensive there in mid-2012. Since then, bloody street battles have carved the city up into opposition- and government-controlled areas.
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