BBC News with Gaenor Howells

Activists and officials in Syria say more than 80 people have been killed in a huge explosion at the University of Aleppo as students were sitting in exams. Activists and eyewitnesses say government aircraft bombed the building but the Syrian government blames rebel fighters. James Reynolds reports

Radio footage shows the facade of one of the university's dormitories blown away. The pictures also show burned-out cars and bodies on the street outside. Syria state TV described the explosions at the University of Aleppo as a terrorist attack that’s the standard government description for any strike carried out by opposition forces. But no rebel group has claimed responsibility for the attack and opposition activists say that the government itself sent its own fighter planes to bomb the university’s grounds.

French warplanes have carried out further air strikes on rebel positions in Mali. They bombed a town of Gao, an important base for Islamists who’ve taken control of much of the north of the country. The French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says Malian government forces have yet to retake another town Konna whose capture last week by Islamists sparked the current crisis. Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.

Konna is the town in central Mali whose capture by the advancing jihadists led to the first French airstrike in support of government forces. The French say that their action stopped the Islamist advance there but now the Defense Minister has said that the Malian army has yet to retake Konna. The significance of this is unclear but it does suggest that the Malian army does not have the capacity to take any advantage on the ground of the air support offered by the French. Meanwhile further to the west, Mr. Le Drian said that Islamists still occupied the town of Diabaly which they took on Monday and from where they’ve threatened to move further south towards the capital Bamako.