At least 21 killed as Syrian warplanes bomb town held by Islamists

PanARMENIAN.Net - At least 21 people were killed and around 100 wounded overnight when Syrian government war planes bombed a town in northern Syria controlled by Islamic State militants, a group monitoring the war said on Sunday, according to Reuters.

The attack came hours before a United Nations mediator met senior Syrian officials in Damascus to discuss ways to ease the war, which has entered its fourth year, killed around 200,000 people and since September drawn in the United States and allies in air strikes against the Sunni militant group Islamic State.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad has stepped up its campaign against Islamic State and other enemies in the weeks since U.S.-led strikes began.

Fighting between Assad's government and rebels has intensified across northern Syria in recent days in areas close to the Turkish border in and around the northern city of Aleppo and in the Damascus countryside close to Lebanon.

Syrian helicopters dropped "barrel bombs" - steel drums full of shrapnel and explosives - while warplanes launched strikes on al-Bab town northeast of the city of Aleppo, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Meanwhile, at four least strikes by the U.S.-led coalition hit the predominantly Kurdish border town of Kobani on Sunday, according to Reuters.

The town, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, has been besieged by Islamic State fighters since September, becoming one of the highest-profile battlefields of the war.