“Some suggest that it may be payback for Russian strikes earlier this year on Syrian opposition forces trained and equipped by the United States”, the analyst noted.
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“Considering that the conditions of the ceasefire are not being respected by the rebels, we consider it pointless for the Syrian government forces to respect it unilaterally”, Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoy said in a televised briefing.
The week-old cease-fire had brought a brief respite to at least some parts the war-torn country. The group is comprised of countries with a stake in the conflict and endorsed the truce, and is led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The attack came just hours after the government there declared a ceasefire was over.
Kerry overcame skepticism of other administration officials to hammer out the ceasefire, gambling on cooperation with Russian Federation despite the deepest mistrust in decades between the Cold War-era superpower foes.
“It would be good if they didn’t talk first to the press but if they talked to the people who are actually negotiating this”, Kerry said. He added that “it’s time to end the grandstanding and time to do the real work”. There had been a measure of reduced violence since the truce was agreed but not seven consecutive days of calm as called for under the deal, Kirby added.
Meanwhile, a humanitarian aid convoy consisting of 40 trucks stocked with supplies for the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo is waiting at a special customs checkpoint at the Turkish border.
Though the US State Department did not directly lay blame for the attack, it said in a statement that it was an “egregious violation” of the ceasefire and would force it to reassess whether it will continue to cooperate with Russian Federation.
The US insisted the airstrikes were a mistake whilst the Russian Foreign Ministry described them as “on the boundary between criminal negligence and direct connivance with Islamic State terrorists”. The ceasefire, in effect since September 12, will end today. Under terms of the agreement, the successful completion of seven days of calm and humanitarian aid deliveries would be followed by an ambitious second-stage plan to set up a joint U.S. The U.S. and Russian Federation have said that if it holds for seven days, it should be followed by the establishment of a Joint Implementation Center for both countries to coordinate the targeting of Islamic State and Al Qaeda-linked militants.
But from the start, the truce has been beset by difficulties and mutual accusations of violations.
Vitali Churkin, the Russian ambassador who called the meeting, said it was suspicious the incident had happened just two days before U.S. and Russian forces were supposed to begin co-ordinated strikes against the Islamists and that it had left a “very big question mark” over the peace deal. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a different death toll, saying 90 troops were killed in the strikes.
“Our outrage at this attack is enormous. the convoy was the outcome of a long process of permission and preparations to assist isolated civilians”, de Mistura said, in a statement emailed to Reuters by his spokeswoman in Geneva.
The US Central Command later issued a statement, saying that it had no intention of targeting Syrian government forces near Deir ez-Zor.
“I am pained and disappointed that a United Nations convoy has yet to cross into Syria from Turkey, and safely reach eastern Aleppo”, the UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien said in a statement. Reports indicate amid the supposed ceasefire, the Assad regime targeted several opposition held neighborhoods in the city of Aleppo as recently as Sunday. In addition, Washington is believed to have provided assistance to groups trying to overthrow the government in Damascus.
The statement said the military forces have practised high self-restraint, and responded in a few cases when it had to do so to silence the fire from the rebels. “The armed terrorist groups took advantage of the declared truce system and mobilized terrorists and weapons and regrouped to continue its attacks on civilian and military areas”.
Syria’s nascent ceasefire hung in the balance Monday after an airstrike on a United Nations aid convoy led the U.S. to question Russia’s commitment to calming violence in the war-torn country and its ability to influence its ally in Damascus.
A Syrian activist group says 92 people have been killed in Syria since the start of the U.S. -Russia-brokered cease-fire a week ago.
“The latest example of this is the flagrant American aggression on one of the Syrian army’s positions in Deir Ezzor to the benefit of Daesh” on Saturday, he added, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
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The attack came a day after strikes by the US-led coalition mistakenly killed dozens of Syrian government troops, prompting a diplomatic firestorm.
