The United Nations appealed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebel groups on Thursday to allow aid convoys to enter eastern Aleppo as U.N. relief operations in Syria resumed after a 48-hour suspension due to a deadly attack.
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“It was definitely intentional, not unintentional as they claim”, Assad said in an interview with AP published on the Syrian presidency website”.
“Neither Washington nor Moscow is happy with where things after just over a week of this cessation of hostilities, but neither is either anxious to see a collapse of the diplomatic process”, says Michael Doyle, a professor of worldwide relations at Columbia University in NY.
He says the war is only likely to “drag on” because of continued external support for his opponents. “You can not commit a mistake for more than one hour”, Assad stressed.
A senior official in the Levant Front, another Aleppo-based rebel group, said 15 raids alone targeted two areas where his group had a presence.
More than a dozen people in the aid convoy, which attempted to deliver much-needed supplies to Aleppo, were killed in the strike early Monday.
Throughout the conflict, Assad’s forces have been accused of bombing hospitals and civilians and choking opposition-held cities.
Millions have fled Syria, some of them drowning at sea in the Mediterranean in a bid to seek refuge in Europe.
Wednesday an unnamed US government source indicated the United States had determined with a high degree of confidence that Russian Federation was responsible for the attack. US officials said the attack – the first direct hit on Syrian forces since the civil war began – was accidental and that the warplanes meant to target Islamic State group positions.
The Russian military spokesman said that the United States and its allies in the coalition were making the allegations against Moscow to distract attention from a deadly strike against Syrian regime forces over the weekend.
“It was the heaviest air strikes for months inside Aleppo city”.
A senior US official said Wednesday that the USA has a very high degree of confidence that the attack was carried out by a Russian-piloted aircraft.
On Wednesday, Lavrov stressed that the September 16 attacks by US-led coalition forces on Syrian army positions at a military airport near Deir ez-Zor were a flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke anonymously.
Russian Federation sees the Obama administration’s desire for an end to hostilities in Syria as “an opportunity to get American help to destroy the Nusra Front”, says Hof, a former White House special adviser for transition in Syria.
The fighters, carrying their personal weapons, and their families will head from the al-Waer neighbourhood to the rebel-held northern Homs countryside, then travel on to rebel-held Idlib province, Homs Governor Talal Barazi said.
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