The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says nearly 2,000 people have been killed in barrel bomb attacks in Aleppo province so far this year.<br /><br />It says nearly 600 of the dead are children.<br /><br />The regime air offensive began in January, and has forced thousands from their homes.<br /><br />Human rights groups say this kind of indiscriminate <br />bombing is a war crime. <br /><br />Al Jazeera Laura Kyle talks to Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma in the United States.
