Regime barrel bomb kills 8 in southwestern Syria

By Khaled Suleiman

DARAA, Syria

At least eight civilians were killed in a barrel bomb attack carried out Sunday by Syrian regime in the southwestern city of Daraa.

A regime helicopter dropped barrel bomb on a residential neighborhood in Dael town, north of Daraa, a local civil defense official said anonymously due to security concerns.

“Eight people were killed and 12 others injured in the attack,” he told Anadolu Agency.

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, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.

The Syrian Center for Policy Research, however, put the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.