Air strikes batter two hospitals in Aleppo countryside

BEIRUT -- Air strikes hit two hospitals in rebel-held territory west of the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo on Monday, and a number of patients and medics were wounded, a monitor and doctor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said warplanes pounded the town of Atareb overnight and into Monday, knocking the hospital out of service.

There were five air strikes on the hospital that destroyed operations and waiting rooms and damaged ambulances in what was the fourth aerial attack on the facility this year, according to the Observatory.