45 civilians were killed and some 175 wounded when aircraft bombed al Bab and neighboring Qabaseen, northeast of Aleppo, the northern Syrian city controlled by Islamic State, as Bashar al-Assad's government stepped up air raids, residents and a monitoring group said on Friday. Helicopters and war planes dropped barrel bombs -- steel drums full of shrapnel and explosives -- on residential and industrial areas in the city on Thursday and overnight, locals said but the Syrian state media did not report the strikes on al Bab.