One week ago, Damascus announced that the U.S./Russia-brokered cease-fire had gone into effect across the war-torn country.
Advertisement
Despite the setback, the State Department said it was prepared to extend the cease-fire window in the hopes that if it held, the USA and Russian Federation could then turn to their planned military cooperation against the Islamic State militants and al-Qaida-linked groups in Syria.
Sirens wailed as ambulances zipped through the eastern rebel-held half of the divided city, the correspondent said, describing the bombardment as “non-stop”.
It said in a statement that “terrorist groups”, a term the Syrian government uses to refer to all Syrian Opposition forces fighting against it, had failed to commit to any of the provisions of the deal, and had used the ceasefire to rearm whilst violating it 300 times.
However, Russia’s defence ministry appeared to bury hopes that the truce would last past Monday night.
The convoy was part of a routine interagency dispatch operated by the Syrian Red Crescent, which United Nations officials said was delivering assistance to 78,000 people in Uram al-Kubra, west of Aleppo city.
United Nations officials said the United Nations and Red Crescent convoy was delivering assistance to the town of Uram al-Kubra, west of Aleppo city.
Elsewhere on Monday, at least 20 civilians, including a 1-year-old girl, were killed in fresh airstrikes on rebel-held Aleppo city and the surrounding areas, according to the Observatory.
The areas hit are close to Syrian army positions that were targeted on Saturday by the USA -led coalition.
The U.S. military acknowledged that it may have mistakenly hit Syrian troops while carrying out a strike against ISIS.
Both President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and the rebels seeking to end his rule have accused each other of undermining the ceasefire.
Secretary of State John Kerry scrambled Monday to try to salvage Syria’s fractured week-old truce after the Syrian military announced it was over amid numerous violations, including an attack on an aid convoy, and apparent Russian unwillingness to press Damascus on the point.
The UN said it had received government approval to reach all the besieged and hard-to-reach areas where it sought to bring aid. He said that in his decades as a diplomat he had “never seen such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness as we are witnessing today” and was “appalled” by Power’s remarks.
He said the incident which involved the US -led coalition fighting against Islamic State showed an “increase in support for terrorists by countries opposing Syria”, state media quoted him as saying.
Russian Federation took the side of the Syrian government, blaming the rebels for violating the truce.
The people of Syria have suffered long enough.
After months of negotiations, the United States and Russian Federation agreed on September 9 to call for a ceasefire, the delivery of aid and the joint targeting of Islamist rebels in Syria.
The United States, Russia, the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition have all traded allegations of truce violations.
At least 62 Syrian soldiers were killed in the strike.
“The destination of this convoy was known to the Syrian regime and the Russian Federation”, state department spokesman John Kirby said.
“We have not had seven days of calm and delivery of humanitarian goods, and so – it’d 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 in NY on Monday.
But convoys to rebel-held districts of Aleppo, besieged by government troops, were still stuck on the border with Turkey. Australian, British and Danish warplanes were involved in that attack on Syrian army positions.
Advertisement
It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties in the attack on the Orum al-Kudra area, said the Observatory.
