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Activists: At Least 25 Killed as Violence Spikes in Syria
Thick smoke rises following an airstrike by the US-led coalition aircraft in Kobani, Syria, October 13, 2015. (Getty Images/Gokhan Sahin)

Activists: At Least 25 Killed as Violence Spikes in Syria

The violence on Saturday appeared set to only harden the opposition's position.

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government strikes hit opposition-held areas near the capital and in the country's largest city, Aleppo, killing at least 25 Saturday while rebels fired mortars into Damascus, in a rare occurrence since the teetering cease-fire took effect in late February.

Western officials, including the U.N. envoy leading negotiations with Syria's warring factions, have warned that a cease-fire was in danger of total collapse due to escalating violence and the walk-out by the Saudi-backed opposition group from the talks Monday. The opposition accuses the government of wrecking the talks with ongoing attacks while the government says it is only targeting terrorist groups who are not part of the cease-fire agreement.

In this April 22, 2016 photo the UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de Mistura speaks to the media during a press conference after a round of negotiations, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)

The U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said the talks will continue until Wednesday as planned, but said the two sides are "extremely polarized," casting doubt on the ability to salvage the talks aimed at finding a political solution to the five-year conflict.

The violence on Saturday appeared set to only harden the opposition's position. Anas al-Abda, the leader of the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition represented in the Geneva talks, lamented the international community's "limpness" in responding to what he called "massacres" against civilians, in response to the Aleppo violence.

The airstrikes in rebel-held areas in Aleppo killed at least 12 people, including children, when they targeted a residential area and market in the Tareeq al-Bab district in the contested city, the activist-run Aleppo Media Center said. Images of the destruction posted on the AMC Facebook page and other sites showed destroyed buildings and rescue teams removing civilians from under rubble and the upper floors of destroyed buildings, including terrified women and children.

A day earlier, at least 18 people were killed in airstrikes on several rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo, in what activists described as the most intense campaign of airstrikes since the cease-fire began. Government forces have boxed-in opposition held areas from all sides except for a corridor from the northwestern edge of the city. Opposition groups have said reports of a new government offensive on their stronghold in the city would wreck the peace talks.

Near the capital, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the opposition activist-run Syrian Press Center said government shelling of rebel strongholds in eastern Ghouta, a Damascus suburb, on Saturday killed at least 13 people, including three women and two children.

And mortar shells returned to the capital— which has seen a relatively calm period during the cease-fire despite violence elsewhere.

Syria's Interior Ministry, meanwhile, said mortar shells fired by rebels fell in two neighborhoods in Damascus, including one several hundred meters from the Russian embassy.

State-news agency SANA said a child was killed in a rebel shelling outside Damascus.

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