Baby survives as family dies in Syrian attack

It is impossible to get used to the roar of a jet overhead, the hum of helicopter blades hovering around your block, the sudden thud of a blast. When you hear it, at least you know you are not are safe.

Yet this has become daily life for residents of Aleppo. People living in rebel held territory, among whom the Free Syrian Army (FSA) mingle, and upon whom the Syrian regime's wrath is visited.

The blasts continue throughout the day and also haunt the night. There is no perceivable pattern as to where they strike, for they don't appear to aim themselves at the few targets the FSA present.

Their timing is also hard to follow: they hit most at dawn and dusk, yes, but the shells are sometimes few, sometimes sustained. And above all, they don't follow a pattern that suggests the artillery weapons are trying to hit-and-miss their way towards an objective. They simply fire, strike, and then move to a completely different place altogether.

The only pattern to divine is that there is really no pattern, unless your aim is to terrify.

That objective is simple when your target is an unarmed civilian population, defended at times by an often motley and ramshackle rebel army. The easiest way to discern there is trouble overhead is to see residents straining their necks upwards.

One morning at 6 a.m., shells and rockets slammed into the al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo. In one home, 12 people from the same extended family were huddled, mostly asleep.

The rockets slammed into the roof, bringing the second floor down onto the first. We arrived four hours after the strike, once the neighborhood had had time to react and begun to dig its way into the rubble. It was a crowd of locals -- fathers and neighbors -- horrified at what was happening to their homes and community. The FSA stood around to rally vehicles to take away the wounded.

The digging was furious: hands and shovels trying to prize away huge slabs of dusty concrete. Faces covered in dust, frantic groups of men trying to be large enough in number to get the job done but small enough to leave space to work in the cramped confines of a half-collapsed building.

There is panic and frenzy, but finally a flurry of cries. "Alla u akhbar," as they see a limb. Then a leg, eventually the limp body of a little girl pulled from the rubble. A blanket is rushed forwards to cover her face: they are too late, and preserving her dignity in death is all they can do.