BEIRUT: More than 80 people were killed while over 200 people injured in Syrian airstrikes on a Damascus suburb.
The air raids stuck the main market in Douma during rush hours when hundreds of people were out shopping on the first working day of the week in Syria, activists said.
The strikes appeared to have been launched in retaliation for the capture an army base in a nearby suburb in Douma day earlier by the Islamic Army rebel group.
Head of Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman said this is an official massacre that was carried out deliberately.
He said jets fired a missile at the market and then launched another after people rushed in to retrieve the wounded.
A total of four missiles were fired on the market, killing 82 and wounded more than 200, he said.
Abdurrahman said the death toll is expected to rise because many of the wounded are in critical condition.
