Using it in a weapon is banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention, which the Assad regime agreed to join after a 2013 United Nations investigation found that the nerve agent Sarin was used against civilians in Eastern Ghouta, killing 1,429 people, more than 400 of them children.
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“There are literally dozens of images of him carrying women, children, old men, the dead, the wounded from buildings in Aleppo over the past two years”, Le Mesurier said in a statement emailed to Newsweek. Groups constituting Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State terrorist organizations (both outlawed in Russia) continue attempts to break down regime of cessation of hostilities in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Damascus, the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria said in its regular daily news bulletin posted on the Russian defense ministry’s website on Friday.
Kafr Hamra is near the northern front line in the divided city of Aleppo, where government troops have sealed the main route into opposition areas, effectively trapping almost 300,000 residents.
Opposition fighters in Aleppo last week launched a counter-offensive which broke the siege on the southern front-line.
Khaled Omar Harah, one of the longest-serving members of the Syrian Civil Defense, a group of rescuers also known as the White Helmets, was killed in Aleppo, Syria, on Thursday during fighting in the city.
The volunteer group said one of its most well-known members died after being buried under the rubble of a Wednesday airstrike in the Ramouseh area, recently seized by rebels from government forces. “It was a miracle”, said Bibars Mishal, a colleague of Mr Harah in Aleppo.
Khaled Omar Harah, a painter and decorator before conflict erupted in 2011, was a member of the Syria Civil Defence, a group of almost 3,000 volunteers who rush to the scene of airstrikes and dig through the rubble to search for survivors.
The UN has repeatedly called on all parties to comply with obligations under worldwide law to protect civilians and vital infrastructure but, despite promises of a regime-backed ceasefire, the violence continues in Aleppo.
In July alone, aid organisations reported 43 facilities in opposition areas partially or totally destroyed.
“Before this offensive (the Russians) believed they could bring us to their negotiating table and impose a national unity government with Assad remaining in power”, she said in an interview.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says Sunday that government airstrikes and shelling on opposition areas in the provincial capital, Aleppo city, and surrounding countryside killed 40 civilians. It was not clear what the target was but videos shared by activists of the scene show bodies of women and children strewn on the side of the road.
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Activist-operated Facebook page the Local Coordination Committees said collective open air Friday prayers were called off in Idlib because of the intensity of the airstrikes.
