BEIRUT: At least 13 civilians, including four children and two adults from the same family, were killed Wednesday in Syrian regime air raids on an ISIS-held village in the province of Aleppo, a monitor said.

“The air force dropped barrel bombs this morning on the village of Qasr al-Breij,” held by ISIS, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Dozens of people were also wounded in the village, which lies more than 60 km from the city of Aleppo.

Rami Abdel-Rahman, the Observatory’s director, said the regime was “trying to distance the jihadi threat from sectors of Aleppo province held by the army” but killing scores of civilians in the process.

The Observatory said that four children, a man and a woman from the same family, were among the dead, along with three other women.

It said the death toll was expected to rise, while an anti-regime activist group in Aleppo said the strike killed 18 people, adding that four barrel bombs were dropped on Qasr al-Breij.

Barrel bombs are containers packed with explosives and scrap metal that are typically dropped from helicopters.

President Bashar Assad has denied that government forces use the weapons, which rights groups say kill indiscriminately, in their battle against rebels.

Since July 11, regime bombardment of ISIS-held towns and villages in Aleppo has cost the lives of 136 civilians northeast of the city, especially in Al-Bab, which lies near a military airport, said the Observatory, which takes its information from a vast network of sources on the ground.