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Beirut / AP
The UN envoy for Syria has urged Al Qaida-linked fighters in the rebel-held eastern parts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to leave the area.
Staffan de Mistura also asked Russian and Syrian forces if they would immediately stop their “aerial bombing” of Aleppo, providing militants from the Fatah Al Sham Front group — formerly known as the Nusra Front, which has been linked to Al Qaida — leave the city.
De Mistura said if the militants lay down their weapons “in dignity” and leave, he would “personally” accompany them out. He said the militant are in essence holding “hostage” roughly 275,000 people in Aleppo. The U.N. considers the Nusra Front a terrorist group.
De Mistura says a maximum of 900 Nusra Front fighters would “need some guarantees” that they would be allowed safe passage to Idlib province. He spoke to reporters in Geneva on Thursday.
The U.N. envoy for Syria says only an estimated 8,000 rebel fighters are holed up in the eastern parts of Aleppo amid a government offensive in this northern Syrian city — and that no more than 900 insurgents there are from the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria.
Staffan de Mistura’s remarks underscore the brutality of the fighting in Aleppo, where a besieged population of 275,000 in the eastern, rebel-held part of the city, is in desperate need of aid.
At a press conference in Geneva, de Mistira sharply revised downward his earlier estimate announced at the U.N. Security Council last month that more than half of all fighters in the northern city were from the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front, formerly known as the Nusra Front.
The Russian-backed Syrian offensive on rebel-held parts of Aleppo has in part spurred the United States to suspend its cooperation with Russia in trying to achieve a cease-fire in Syria.
In a BBC interview last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that 50 percent of opposition fighters in Aleppo were from Nusra Front, “as confirmed by the United Nations,” according to a transcript posted on Russian diplomatic websites.