Rights group calls for UN arms embargo on Syria over barrel bombs

Syrian government troops carried out hundreds of indiscriminate aerial attacks in the past year, most with barrel bombs, in defiance of a United Nations Security Council demand to stop, a US rights group said, calling for a UN arms embargo.

The barrel bombs, containers packed with explosives and projectiles that are dropped from helicopters, have killed thousands of civilians, Human Rights Watch said, adding that Syrian forces had carried out at least 1,450 air attacks in southwestern Daraa and northern Aleppo in the past 11 months.

“The majority appear to be barrel bomb attacks,” Human Rights Watch deputy Middle East and North Africa director Nadim Houry told a news conference.

Human Rights Watch, Western countries and the United Nations – including in a recent report on Syria to the Security Council – have for months raised concerns about the use of barrel bombs.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said earlier this month that the Syrian air force did not use the lethal devices. US and European officials have said Assad’s denial was not credible.