Fresh strikes pound Aleppo ahead of UN Syria talks

Aleppo / AFP

Syrian and Russian warplanes pounded rebel-held east Aleppo on Sunday ahead of a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the worst surge in violence to hit the devastated city in years.
Overnight, residents and a monitor reported heavy air raids on the besieged east of the city, which Syria’s army has pledged to retake.
Washington and its European allies meanwhile said the burden was on regime ally Moscow to save a truce that fell apart in the past week. At least 101 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syrian and Russian bombardment of eastern Aleppo since the army announced an operation to take it Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The monitor said at least 17 children were among those killed in the assault, which has included missile strikes, barrel bomb attacks and artillery fire.
On Saturday night, residents said cluster bombs rained down on eastern parts of the city, where an estimated 250,000 people are living under a government siege.
“All night long they were dropping cluster bombs. I couldn’t sleep until four in the morning,” said 62-year-old Ahmed Hajar, who was out looking for bread in Al-Kalasseh neighbourhood. “Today the streets of my neighbourhood are full of unexploded cluster bombs. One person was killed when he disturbed one and it
exploded,” he added.

‘We’re civilians here’
In the nearby neighbourhood of Bab Al Nayrab, 30-year-old Imad Habush was baking bread in a small wood-burning oven outside his house. “None of the bakeries are open anymore because of the bombing and the shortages of fuel and flour, so people have started making their own bread,” he said.
More than 300,000 people have been killed and over half the country displaced since the war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
Successive attempts to reach a political solution have failed, and the latest bid by Moscow and Washington has virtually collapsed, despite ongoing talks to save it.

‘Chilling escalation’
Ban said on Saturday he was “appalled by the chilling military escalation” in Aleppo, and Britain, France and the United States requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. The meeting is scheduled for 1500 GMT, but it was unclear what results it could produce, with Moscow and Washington trading accusations over who is to blame for the ceasefire’s failure.
“The burden is on Russia to prove it is willing and able to take extraordinary steps to salvage diplomatic efforts,” read a joint statement from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the United States and European Union.
“Patience with Russia’s continued inability or unwillingness to adhere to its commitments is not unlimited,” the statement added.
But Russia has blamed Washington for the ceasefire’s failure, saying it did not uphold its commitment to ensure moderate rebels distanced themselves from jihadist groups like former Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.
Syria’s foreign minister meanwhile said Saturday that his government was confident of “victory” with support from “true friends” including Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
“Our belief in victory is even greater now that the Syrian Arab army is making great strides in its war against terrorism,” he told the UN General Assembly.
But on the ground, the army was pushed back from the strategic Handarat camp north of Aleppo city that they captured on Saturday, the Observatory said.

Attacks on civilians ‘breach’
humanitarian law: EU

Brussels / AFP

The attacks on civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo amount to a “breach of international humanitarian law,” top EU officials said Saturday, urging the international community to intensify peace efforts. “The indiscriminate suffering being caused among innocent civilians… is an unacceptable breach of international humanitarian law,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and humanitarian commissioner Christos Stylianides said in a statement.
They denounced the “fire-bombing and shelling” as well as the “deliberate targeting” of a humanitarian convoy last week and the “cutting off of water supplies to the majority of civilians still in the city.”
Mogherini and Stylianides called the suffering caused by the attacks “an affront” to the whole world.
“It risks to take us ever further from a negotiated settlement of conflict, which remains the only way of bringing it to an end,” they added. The pair called on those with influence on regime and those dealing with armed opposition “to apply the maximum pressure to cease the attacks.”
They also urged them to work to “allow unhindered and continuous humanitarian access to those in need, and resume political negotiations under the auspices of the UN in Geneva as swiftly as possible.”