“It’s as if the planes are trying to compensate for all the days they didn’t drop bombs [during the ceasefire]”. At least 13 people, including women and children, are believed to have died.
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The estimated 250,000 residents of east Aleppo, which rebels opposing Bashar al-Assad’s rule have held since 2012, have been living under siege since early September.
The United States and Russian Federation are taking their differences over the conflict in Syria to new heights, after trading ferocious allegations of duplicity and malfeasance at the United Nations Security Council.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the proposal “not functional” and denied that his country had carried out the fatal attack on a United Nations aid convoy in Aleppo on Monday.
But following the pause a convoy on Thursday entered Muadhamiya, a suburb of the capital, Damascus, where some 40,000 people are living under siege, the United Nations tweeted.
“It’s important to understand that the security situation in Syria is not one situation, it’s a patchwork of different levels of security or insecurity, it’s a patchwork of multiple actors and armed groups, and we need to take that into account when we evaluate on a case-by-case basis”, Laerke said.
The UN hopes to send others to besieged areas in Idlib and near the Lebanese border in coming days.
Another four were killed in late-night bombing of the city’s Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood, with residents sharing images and videos showing buildings engulfed in flames, the results of what they alleged were phosphorus bombs.
The Aleppo Media Centre said the fires had been caused by “incendiary phosphorus bombs”.
Assad said US strikes, which killed 62 Syrian government troops in Deir ez-Zor on September 17, were “intentional” and they lasted for an hour.
The top diplomats from the United States and Russian Federation were to meet with other key players in NY later yesterday, after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Syria’s peace process was facing a “make or break moment”.
But the prospects for progress are thin, says the BBC’s James Longman in Beirut.
Instead, Mr Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, who negotiated the truce two weeks ago, went their separate ways as violence in Syria flared anew and the relationship between the two key foreign powers in the conflict appeared to reach a new low.
Amid deep pessimism over whether the truce could be resurrected, the group was to consider a US call for all warplanes to halt flights over aid routes following an attack on a humanitarian convoy near the besieged city of Aleppo and a Russian suggestion for a three-day pause in fighting to get the so-called “cessation of hostilities” back on track.
Another official also speaking on condition that he not be named said even if Russian Federation is not participating directly in the offensive, it is still responsible for the actions of Syrian forces under the cessation agreement.
Russian Federation has denied USA claims that it was responsible, but Kerry focused on its shifting explanation of what might have happened.
“The question now is whether there remains any real chance of moving forward, because it is clear that we can not continue on the same path any longer”, Kerry said.
“It was four airplanes that kept attacking the position of the Syrian troops for almost one hour, or a little bit more than one hour”.
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“You have 48 hours only, that’s the time-frame the leadership has set”, one of the messages said.
