DAMASCUS
At least 92 people, including nine children and 15 women, were killed in attacks staged by the Syrian regime with heavy weaponry in several cities across the country on Sunday, opposition activists said.
Syrian regime forces killed 36 in Aleppo, 25 in Homs, 13 in the suburbs of capital Damascus, 10 in Daraa, three in Idlib, two each in Hama and Deir-ez Zor, and one in Hasakah in air and land offensives on opposition-held areas across the country, according to a statement by the Syrian Network of Human Rights (SNHR), a London-based group which tracks civilian and dissident casualties.
A Local Coordination Committees (LCC) statement said that Syrian army helicopters dropped "barrel bombs" on opposition-held areas in Aleppo, reporting fierce clashes between the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic Front in Aleppo's Al-Bab district.
The statement noted that Douma, Darayya, Berze, Yermouk and Qabun suburbs of Damascus came under heavy attacks by Assad regime forces, adding that ISIL and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces clashed in the northern Raqqa province.
Similarly, Syrian official news agency SANA announced that Syrian regime forces launched operations in the suburbs of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus, killing a large number of armed dissidents.
The Syrian Revolution General Council (SRGC) said in a statement that Syrian air forces bombed the Duma district in the suburbs of Damascus and many people were reported killed and wounded.
Meanwhile, the SNHR said the death toll among children had exceeded 12,000 since clashes broke out in Syria in March, 2011.
More than 100,000 people have been killed in almost three years of conflict in Syria and over two million Syrians are now registered as refugees in neighboring countries, in Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq, according to the UN.
The Microfinance Program Director at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Alex Pollock, said that the total cost of the Syria crisis had reached $103.1 billion by the first half of 2013.
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