Dozens killed after 'barrel bombs' fall on Syria's largest city, activists say

For the third straight day, Syria's largest city is getting bombarded from the sky.

Regime helicopters dropped another wave of barrel bombs on rebel-held parts of Aleppo early Tuesday, opposition activists said. By midday, at least 36 people -- including five children -- had been killed in the attacks, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.

Barrel bombs are barrels full of explosives that sometimes contain nails or other projectiles to inflict the most harm possible.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency did not explicitly mention the use of barrel bombs Tuesday, but said "armed terrorist groups were entirely eliminated" in several parts of Aleppo. The Syrian regime often describes opposition forces bent out ousting President Bashar al-Assad as "terrorists."

From metropolis to battlefield

Tuesday's carnage follows two days of intense bloodshed in Syria's economic hub.

At least 83 people were killed Sunday by aerial bombing in Aleppo, including 27 children, the LCC said. Another 56 people died there Monday from similar attacks, the dissident group said.

Entire buildings have been flattened in the blasts, the opposition Syrian National Coalition said.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf decried the alleged use of barrel bombs.

"We strongly condemn the latest development from over the weekend that the Assad regime has dropped barrel bombs in and around Aleppo, killing dozens, including women and children," she said.

"These bombs and the explosive materials contained within them further underscore the brutality of the Assad regime and the lengths they will go to attack and kill their own people."

Syria's descent into civil war began in March 2011, when al-Assad's regime forcefully cracked down on peaceful anti-government protesters.

That conflict spiraled into an armed uprising and a 2-year-old crisis that the United Nations says has claimed more than 100,000 lives.

British citizen dies in Syrian custody

A British surgeon who was taken into custody by Syrian government authorities last year has died, just days before he was scheduled to return home, British Member of Parliament George Galloway said Tuesday in a statement.

Government forces took Abbas Khan into custody last year while he was working as part of a humanitarian mission, Galloway said in a statement. He had entered the country without a visa, said Galloway, who had been planning to fly to Damascus on Friday to retrieve Khan.

"I was in the process of booking a flight for this Friday when I got the appalling news," Galloway said in a statement.

British media reported that Syrian officials said Khan committed suicide, but his family disputed that on a Twitter site dedicated to his release, saying instead that his "life was taken meaninglessly.