REBEL shelling killed at least five civilians and injured 25 in Syria yesterday.

Four people were killed and four injured after militants fired a rocket at a building in al-Neel, Aleppo — Syria’s second city.

Rocket fire in the central city of Homs killed a three-year-old child and injured 21 more, including 10 children.

Syrian soldiers drove back armed rebels in Hama and Deir Ezzor provinces and made advances in Aleppo, where an offensive was recently launched from within the besieged city.

Meanwhile, US Major Michael Filanowski said yesterday in Baghdad that US-led warplanes had bombed Syria’s Omar oil field.

He said the air strikes were aimed at hampering Isis’s ability to make money.

The extremist group has raised funds by smuggling oil through Western ally Turkey, which has allegedly turned a blind eye to Isis fighters crossing from its territory into Syria.

Jets blitzed refineries, control centres and transport facilities in the oil field on Wednesday, Maj Filanowski said.

The terror group is also said to be considering an alliance with local al-Qaida “affiliate” the Nusra Front, Russian defence officials claimed on Wednesday.

Intercepted radio messages indicated a plan to form a common front against the renewed Syrian army offensive, which has been boosted by heavy bombing by Russian planes.

Major-General Igor Konashenkov said the intercepts contained “information about the beginning of the talks between commanders” of the two groups.

And journalist Zaid Benjamin of the US Congress-funded Radio Sawa reported that Ahrar ash-Sham — a group of fundamentalist Salafist factions supported by Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — had allied itself to the Nusra Front.

• Military analysis firm Jane’s said yesterday the number of Isis attacks in Iraq had risen by 40 per cent in the third quarter of this year.

Earlier this week Iraqi troops and militias retook the city of Beiji, which has a major oil refinery, from Isis.

In support of the ground offensive, Iraqi pilots flew 40 sorties and US-led coalition jets took part in four.