Dozens die as Syrian warplanes hit gas station

 Syrian government warplanes targeted a northern town Thursday, hitting a gas station and triggering an explosion that killed at least 55 people, opposition forces said.

It's the latest salvo in Syria's bloody 18-month-old civil war that shows no sign of letting up. Dozens were wounded in the airstrike in Raqqa province that two opposition groups said was carried out by Syrian government aircraft.

The opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria distributed videos of the site, a flat and barren landscape. They showed black smoke, charred and destroyed vehicles, holes in the ground and people milling around corpses.

The strike came a day after rebels seized a border crossing in Raqqa near Syria's border with Turkey.

Earlier Thursday, five people were reported killed from aerial shelling of residential neighborhoods in Aleppo, and MiG warplane activity was reported in Damascus countryside villages, the LCC said.