The incident took place in Halfaya, a town recently captured by rebels.

 

If activists' reports of 90 deaths are confirmed, this would be one of the deadliest air strikes of the civil war.

 

Syrian state TV blamed an "armed terrorist group" for the attack, saying the group had then filmed the incident to blame it on government troops.

 

Rebels have been fighting President Bashar al-Assad for 21 months, with opposition groups saying more than 44,000 people have been killed.

 

The latest violence comes as the joint⁴ United Nations-Arab League special envoy⁵ on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, arrived in Damascus to discuss ways to end the unrest.

 

One activist³ in Halfaya, Samer al-Hamawi, told Reuters news agency: "There is no way to really know yet how many people were killed. When I got there, I could see piles of bodies all over the ground.

 

"We hadn't received flour in around three days so everyone was going to the bakery today, and lots of them were women and children. I still don't know yet if my relatives are among the dead."

 

Unverified video footage purportedly⁶ of the incident's aftermath showed graphic⁷ images of bloody⁸ bodies strewn on a road outside a partially⁹ destroyed building.

 

Rescuers were trying to remove some of the victims buried beneath piles of bricks and rubble¹⁰.

 

Several badly damaged motorbikes could be seen scattered¹¹ near the site of the attack which had drawn¹² a number of armed men to the area.

 

The UK-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory¹³ for Human Rights (SOHR), said more than 50 of the wounded were in critical condition and the death toll¹⁴ could rise.

 

Rebels of the Free Syrian Army have been making a concerted push recently to take areas of Hama province.

 

Five days ago they declared Halfaya a "liberated¹⁵ area" after taking over army positions there.

 

The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says the rebels want to take control of the whole of Hama and link up the territory they control. As has happened many times before, he says, the government has hit back with massive firepower at the areas it has lost.

 

The SOHR said there had been other air strikes on Sunday, including one on the town of Safira in northern Aleppo province, which killed 13 people.

 

The Observatory also reported that jets had struck the town of Saqba, just north of Damascus.

 

It said more than 180 people had been killed across the country on Sunday.

 

The SOHR is one of the most prominent organisations documenting and reporting incidents and casualties in the Syrian conflict. The group says its reports are impartial¹⁶, though its information cannot be independently verified."

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