It was not clear who was behind the attack late on Monday, which sent a red fireball into the sky in the dead of night over a rural area in Aleppo province.
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the attacks were carried out by either Syrian or Russian aircraft, adding that there had been 35 strikes in and around Aleppo since the truce ended.
The U.N.’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, announced earlier in the day it had suspended relief convoys in Syria, pending a review of the security situation.
But a member of the Syrian Civil Defense – a group of volunteer first responders also known as the White Helmets – criticized the United Nations humanitarian aid agency for suspending the convoys. A United Nations humanitarian aid convoy in Syria was hit by airstrikes Monday as the Syrian military declared that a U.S.
The U.N. stressed that they had “deconflicted” the delivery with all parties before the operation, by obtaining the necessary permits from the government and supplying combatants with the relevant coordinates for the move.
Still, Rhodes said the US wasn’t yet willing to “walk away from the table” despite the airstrike on the aid convoy that was “completely contrary to and in violation of that agreement”.
The convoy, escorted by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, was among the first to try to deliver humanitarian aid to the rebel-held areas under the cease-fire agreement. His brother, Ali Barakat, who was also present at the attack, said it took him three hours to reach Omar, who was trapped in his vehicle.
Predictably, Russian and Syrian officials denied their planes were involved – just as they have brushed off the well-documented reports of their air attacks on hospitals, food stores and other civilian targets.
Even before the strikes, some 40 United Nations trucks carrying relief supplies destined for rebel-held east Aleppo had remained stuck in a customs zone between the Turkish and Syrian borders since early last week.
No-one has claimed responsibility for the airstrike on Monday evening which killed around 20 aid workers delivering humanitarian supplies to civilians in rebel-held Urm al Kubra near Aleppo.
‘It was certainly not the coalition who struck from the air. “That means there only could’ve been two entities responsible: either the Syrian regime or the Russian government”.
But both Syria and Russian Federation have denied responsibility for the strikes, with Moscow furious at the “unsubstantiated, hasty accusations” from Washington.
Under the agreement, fighters within the country were asked to declare a truce and allow the flow of aid to besieged areas like Aleppo.
Two Russian Sukhoi SU-24 warplanes were in the skies above an aid convoy in Syria at the precise time it was struck on Monday, two US officials told Reuters on Tuesday.
Piles of white bags filled with flour were seen near one of the trucks.
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Aid convoys have endured sniper fire and shelling during the five years of the Syrian conflict, but Monday’s attack is believed to be the first time one was hit by an airstrike.
