At least 31 people were killed Monday in barrel bomb attacks in the northern city of Aleppo, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog group:

Some of the wounded were in a serious condition after the strikes on the Sukkari and Ashrafiyeh neighbourhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Two bombs hit Sukkari minutes apart, with the second catching helpers who had gone to the assistance of the casualties from the first.

“We were sleeping safely when the first barrel dropped around midnight,” said resident Abu Mohammad.

“And when people came to the rescue, a second barrel dropped, so all those people who were on the site were dead.

“We don’t have military bases in our area. All people here are civilians. Why is he (President Bashar al-Assad) attacking us?” he asked.

The Assad regime has been waging an aerial bombing campaign against rebel-held areas of Aleppo since December, with the death toll for 2014 exceeding 2,000. The use of the helicopter-deployed, shrapnel-packed IEDs – which can level entire buildings with a single explosion – has been slammed by top Western diplomats — Secretary of State John Kerry has referred to the use of the bombs as “barbaric”; British Foreign Secretary William Hague went so far as to call their use a “war crime.”

The latest wave of barrel bombings comes as observers are growing increasingly concerned about the precedent set by the Assad regime’s tactics:

“It’s fair to say that a lot of governments are losing control of the counterinsurgency,” said Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “They’re also watching what they see in Syria, and they feel like their air power is what is making the difference.”

Agence France Presse (AFP) reported at the end of last month that the Iraqi government had begun using barrel bombs to target civilians. Barrel bombs have also washed up on Israeli beaches and are believed to have originated in Gaza.

[Photo: Latest World News / YouTube]