Airstrike kills 12 civilians

BEIRUT (AP):A Syrian government airstrike on a town in the country's northwest killed at least 12 people yesterday, shattering store fronts, setting cars ablaze, and sending a giant plume of black and grey smoke over the horizon.

President Bashar Assad's air force has been one of his biggest assets in the two-year-old civil war, and he has used warplanes and helicopters to try to check rebel advances, although the regime also frequently hits civilian areas.

WAR CRIMES

A Human Rights Watch report this week accused the Syrian government of committing war crimes by using indiscriminate and sometimes deliberate airstrikes against civilians, killing at least 4,300 people since the summer.

Yesterday's air raid struck the town of Saraqeb in Idlib province, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group.

The Observatory said four of the 12 people killed in the attack were members of the same family. Many others were wounded and the death toll was expected to rise.