Rocket strike hits Aleppo neighbourhood

A rocket strike on a government-held neighbourhood in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo has killed at least 11 people, according to the country’s state news agency.

The opposition rocket attack on the northern neighbourhood of Achrafieh on Friday also wounded 17 people, the state news agency, SANA, said.

“The toll in rockets fired by terrorists on Achrafieh district has risen to 13, including women and children,” SANA reported.

The attack came shortly before a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in the northwestern town of Binnish, killing at least eight people, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

An activist in the area, who goes by the name of Mohammed Kanaan, told the AP news agency that the blast occurred as worshippers attended Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque.

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition groups, said the car bomb killed several people and wounded dozens more.

Control of Aleppo, once Syria’s economic hub, has been divided between the government and opposition since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.

Regime war planes have waged an aerial offensive on the city’s eastern, rebel-held districts, frequently dropping barrel bombs on the area.

Opposition forces have also regularly fired rockets into the government-held part of the city.

Activists say more than 150,000 people have died in Syria’s three-year-old conflict and more than 2.5 million people have fled the country.