The strikes have threatened to derail peace talks and came at the end of a one-week truce brokered by USA and Russian Federation that was meant to help administer aid to besieged areas. Both Syrian and Russian aircraft operate over Syria, as well as the USA -led coalition that is targeting the Islamic State group.
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It came as the United Nations suspended all aid convoys in Syria after the deadly attack near Aleppo, and as diplomats in NY were trying to save a week-old truce agreement.
USA officials called the airstrike “outrageous”, yet said it was too early to declare the cease-fire finished.
“Around twenty civilians and one SARC (Syrian Arab Red Crescent) staff member were killed as they were unloading trucks carrying vital humanitarian aid”, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement.
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Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser, also told CNN that it was clearly an airstrike that destroyed the aid convoy.
“If this callous attack is found to be a deliberate targeting of humanitarians, it would amount to a war crime, ‘ United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien said in a statement”. Russian Federation has been helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the fight, though it has said its efforts are focused on attacking terror groups such as ISIS that have flourished during the conflict.
The bombing run saw 18 trucks from a 31-vehicle convoy were destroyed, and at least 20 people killed.
The UN halted its aid deliveries following the strike and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called it a “sickening, savage, and apparently deliberate attack”.
The Russian government on Tuesday denied that its military or that of Syrian President Bashar Assad were responsible for an attack on an aid convoy near Aleppo that killed several humanitarian workers.
Soon after Syria’s regime declared that a weeklong cease-fire had ended, Aleppo and its countryside fell under intense bombardment.
Red Cross spokesman Benoit Carpentier told reporters that the director of the Syrian Red Crescent’s sub-branch was killed, along with a number of civilians.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the fate of the pilot remains unclear.
The feeling among officials is that if they say too much, it will expose sensitive military intelligence capabilities to the Russians.
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US Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking alongside his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, insisted the cessation of hostilities deal was “not dead”, following talks with delegates of the Syria Support Group.
