DAMASCUS
At least 99 people, including 11 children and five women, were killed in attacks staged by the Syrian regime in several cities across the country on Saturday, opposition activists said.
Syrian regime forces killed 50 in Aleppo, 15 in Homs, 16 in the suburbs of capital Damascus, seven in Hama, three each in Daraa and Deir-ez Zor, two each in Rakka and Idlib, and one in Latakia in air and land offensives 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.
SNHR said that Syrian helicopters dropped "barrel bombs" on Aleppo and Tell Rifaat, and a military fighter jet bombed the town of Azaz along the Syrian-Turkish border, resulting in deaths and casualties and destructed homes.
SNHR further added that Assad forces launched heavy weapon attacks in Homs and Douma, Yarmouk, Darayya, Jobar and al-Kabun districts of the capital.
On the other hand, Syrian official news agency SANA announced that Syrian regime forces launched operations in Aleppo, Deir-ez Zor and rural areas of Damascus, killing a large number of armed dissidents.
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, 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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