Rights group accuses Syria government of some 1,450 air attacks

By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.S.-based human rights group accused the Syrian government on Tuesday of launching aerial attacks that have killed or injured thousands of civilians in the past 11 months of the country's four-year civil war. Human Rights Watch said Syria carried out at least 1,450 indiscriminate attacks from the air, often using barrel bombs, which are containers packed with explosives and projectiles that are dropped from helicopters. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview broadcast earlier this month that the Syrian air force did not use the lethal devices. U.S. and European officials have said Assad's denial was not credible. "While deaths from aerial attacks are not exclusively from barrel bombs, residents from rebel held territory in Daraa and Aleppo told Human Rights Watch that barrel bombs account for a majority of air strikes," the group said. Human Rights Watch said it examined satellite imagery and had identified at least 450 major damage sites in 10 towns and villages held by rebels in the southwestern Daraa and more than 1,000 in northern Aleppo between Feb. 22, 2014 and Jan 15, 2015. "These impact sites have damage signatures strongly consistent with the detonation of large, air-dropped munitions, including improvised barrel and conventional bombs dropped by helicopters," the organisation said in a statement. "Damages that possibly result from the use of rockets, missiles, or fuel-air bombs are also likely in a number of instances," it said. The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on Feb. 22 last year that demanded all parties stop indiscriminate attacks in populated areas, including shelling and aerial bombardment such as the use of barrel bombs. Human Rights Watch said government-launched aerial bombardments had led to the deaths and injuries of thousands of civilians in rebel-held areas. It cited a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which said barrel bombs had killed 6,163 civilians, including 1,892 children, since Feb. 22, 2014. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Christian Plumb)