20 Syrians killed by Scud-type missile

A Syrian missile killed at least 20 people in a rebel-held district of Aleppo on yesterday, opposition activists said, as the army turns to longer-range weapons after losing bases in the country’s second-largest city. Opposition activists said 25 people were missing under rubble of three buildings hit by a several-metre-long missile. They said remains of the weapon showed it to be a Scud-type missile of the type government forces increasingly use in Aleppo and in Deir a-Zor. Nato said in December Assad’s forces fired Scud-type missiles. It did not specify where they landed but said their deployment was an act of desperation. Bodies were being gradually dug up, Mohammad Nour, an activist, said by phone from Aleppo. “Some, including children, have died in hospitals,” he said. The use of what opposition activists said was a large missile of the same type as Russian-made Scuds against an Aleppo residential district came after rebels overran army bases over the past two months from which troops had fired artillery. As the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, now a civil war, nears its two-year mark, rebels also landed three mortar bombs in the rarely-used presidential palace...