A regime air strike in Hama province of central Syria caused "suffocation and poisoning", an NGO said Saturday, while state media accused rebels of releasing chlorine gas. Elsewhere, fighting raged all day in Aleppo near an air force intelligence base, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights labelling it "the most violent since the beginning of the battle" in the northern city in mid-2012. In the rebel-held town of Kafr Zita in Hama province, residents choking from poisoning were hospitalised after raids with barrel bombs on Friday, the Observatory quoted medics as saying. "Regime planes bombed Kafr Zita with explosive barrels that produced thick smoke and odours and led to cases of suffocation and poisoning," the monitoring group's head Rami Abdel Rahman said. Source: AFP