Syria for the day

Time has an article by Aryn Baker from Beirut about the latest madness in Syria:

First deployed against the opposition-dominated city of Homs in August of 2012, barrel bombs (video, above) didn’t really gain prominence until December of 2013, when scores of the improvised devises were dropped on the city of Aleppo, killing more than five hundred. Though an estimated fifty rebels were killed in the bombardment, most of those hit were civilians, in civilian areas, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group with reporters on the ground and links to the opposition.
The deployment in civilian areas of barrel bombs, which cannot be targeted, could be considered a war crime, according to Human Rights Watch, which released a report about their use in Aleppo. The Syrian government routinely denies that it uses such weapons, but US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland confirmed their deployment in December of 2013, telling journalists in a discussion about the regime’s use of Scud missiles that “we’re seeing use of another egregious weapon. It’s kind of a barrel bomb, which is an incendiary bomb that contains flammable materials.”
Barrel bombs may be an inexpensive alternative to more sophisticated missiles, but few take their use as a sign of the regime’s diminishing conventional arsenal. Instead, it’s interpreted as an indication of the government’s determination to win, whatever the cost.

Rico says he was more interested in the footage on the nightly news awhile back of the rebels using what looks like a spigot mortar: