Two Russian SU-24 ground attack jets were operating in the area where the aid convoy was struck in the Aleppo region late Monday, another U.S. official told AFP.
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He said the United States prefers to continue with the ceasefire in Syria, but is concerned by Russia’s failure to be honest in its intentions.
But Russia has denied its aircraft or those of its Syrian government allies were involved in the incident, in which 18 trucks from a 31-vehicle convoy were destroyed.
The strike appeared to deal a fatal blow to Syria’s fragile week-old cease-fire. Asked about the chances the week-long cease-fire was over, one official said, “We don’t know if it can be salvaged”.
Officials are seeking to confirm the number of people killed and wounded in the attack on Monday night, and an assessment of the security situation in Syria is under way, Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations, told reporters in Geneva.
Today’s gathering in NY was led by Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which employs a network of activists in the country to monitor attacks on civilians, reports that it was a series of airstrikes that took out the convoy in Aleppo. The Syrian military could not immediately be reached for comment on the attack. The damage inficted on the trucks was “the direct result of the cargo catching fire, which mysteriously began at the same time as a large scale rebel attack on Aleppo”, Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
“The United States did not hit an aid convoy or a target that was under protection”, Robert Ford told Sky’s Adam Boulton.
The UN Security Council will hold a high-level meeting on Syria this afternoon, and the distrust between the U.S. and Russian Federation is likely to be high on the agenda.
The UN had earlier said it was “not in a position to determine whether these were in fact air strikes”.
United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien said if the “callous” attack was found to be a deliberate targeting of humanitarians, it would amount to a war crime.
Previously, US officials had said that even if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had carried out the attack, Moscow would share the blame as the Syrian regime’s sponsor and guarantor in truce negotiations.
Peter Maurer, the ICRC President called the attack a “flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law”. Aid workers say trucks that carried desperately needed aid for the rebel-held side of the city, along with a warehouse, were repeatedly bombed, killing at least 20 people.
But prospects for the agreement cratered over the weekend when USA -led coalition planes struck a Syrian army base, killing 62 soldiers and wounding more than 100.
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The vehicle was seen driving alongside the fleet of trucks, but the drone moved out of the area before the strike.
