REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, EIRUT - Syrian opposition gained control of a strategic hospital in the city of Aleppo despite days of relentless barrel bombings of opposition-held areas in the northern city, activists said. The shattered remains of the five-story Kindi hospital is close to Aleppo's besieged central prison, which opposition group have been trying to capture for months to free their comrades.

The rebels captured the hospital on Friday, according to two activist groups — the Aleppo Media Center and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Aleppo-based activist Abu al-Hassan Marea said the rebels who overran the ruins of the hospital included both conservative groups and al-Qaida linked factions.

At least 35 opposition activists were killed in the battle for Kindi, the activists said, a relatively high toll for a single day that spoke to the intensity of the fighting even by the brutal standards of Syria's three-year civil war, said the Observatory, which has a network of activists on the ground. It was not clear how many soldiers were killed.

An 18-year-old Syrian photographer was also killed in the fighting, said the activists. Marea said the photographer was shot but that the circumstances of his death were not immediately clear. He said the photographer's brother, an opposition member, was also killed in the same battle.

Syria is one of the world's most dangerous places for reporters to work. The New-York based media rights group, the Committee to Project Journalists, says 22 journalists were killed in Syria this year. That toll did not include the photographer. Activist groups reported that at least three people were killed in Saturdays' shelling. According to estimates, at least 100 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Aleppo bombings the past week.

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