Warplanes knock out Aleppo hospitals as Russian-backed assault intensifies

By Ellen Francis and Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russian or Syrian warplanes knocked two hospitals out of service in the besieged rebel sector of Aleppo on Wednesday and ground forces intensified an assault in a battle which the United Nations said had made the city worse than a slaughterhouse. Two patients died in one of the hospitals and other shelling killed six residents queuing for bread under a siege that has trapped 250,000 people with food running out. "The warplane flew over us and dir