320 killed in Syria's Aleppo in 6 days of bombing

ALEPPO, Syria

The Syrian regime and Russian aircraft have killed more than 320 civilians in eastern Aleppo over the last six days, a civil defense official said Monday.

Spokesman Ibrahim Abu Laith said 322 people had been killed and 1,050 injured since Russian warplanes stepped up their bombing campaign against the city.

At least 82 children and 63 women had been killed in attacks that saw regime and Russian aircraft target opposition-held areas with cluster bombs, barrel bombs and vacuum bombs.

Schools and bakeries were among the buildings targeted, he added. On Friday, all the city’s hospitals were forced to shut due to relentless airstrikes.

The U.S. State Department said multilateral discussions continued in Geneva to reach a cease-fire agreement in order to find a political solution and provide "meaningful" humanitarian aid to Syria.

Agency spokesman John Kirby said aid has not been delivered to Aleppo for more than one month as shelling and bombing in the war-torn country seemed "to be intensifying".

The spokesman said although there was no "innocent belief in the goodness of Russian intentions", the U.S. knew from prior experience that Moscow could use leverage on the Syrian regime to stop bombings in Aleppo.

Kirby said Secretary of State John Kerry would continue to be focused on the issue for the two months he has left in the office and the U.S. would continue to support ongoing UN efforts to investigate strikes on Aleppo, and to name the perpetrators.

Asked whether the U.S. would support UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura's suggestion that eastern Aleppo could form its own local council that may coordinate the UN receiving humanitarian supplies, Kirby said the U.S. was still going through some of the details of the proposal.

However, he added that the U.S. would "certainly" support effective governance at the local level in Syria.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and millions more displaced.