“The objective of this U.S. aggression is to bring about the failure of the truce”, said Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations.
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Overnight, Russia accused the US of aiding Islamic State and called an emergency session of the UN Security Council to condemn the raid.
The fragile cease-fire in Syria appeared to be unraveling Sunday as rebel positions in Aleppo came under aerial attack Sunday, killing at least eight people, as world leaders gathered in NY for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. “We have not had seven days of calm and of delivery of humanitarian goods”, Kerry said.
“This might put in danger this Joint Implementation Center that the U.S. and the Russians are supposed to set up in the next few days to coordinate just these kinds of strikes against ISIS and to prevent just what happened”, he said. That was to be set up after seven days of reduced violence and sustained aid deliveries to Aleppo and other areas.
Assad made his comments Monday during a meeting with Iranian Foreign Ministry official Hossein Jaberi Ansari.
The ceasefire in Syria is only being observed by government troops, while militants are using the truce to prepare a large-scale offensive in Aleppo under the passive eye of the United States, the Russian Defense Ministry said. But a week after it began, desperate populations in besieged areas have yet to receive this aid, which has been held up on the Turkish border as humanitarian agencies await guarantees of safety from the warring parties.
The Syrian government, assisted by Russian Federation, has tortured and bombed its people, Power said.
George Sabra, of the opposition High Negotiations Committee, told The Associated Press on Monday that the truce has been repeatedly violated and did not succeed in its main objective – opening roads for aid to enter besieged rebel-held areas.
“The truce, as we have warned, and we told the (US) State Department – will not hold out”, a senior rebel official in Aleppo said, pointing to the continued presence of a United Nations aid convoy at the Turkish border awaiting permission to enter.
“And let me just say for the record that we believe that Russian Federation should in fact be convening an emergency meeting this evening and emergency meeting with the Assad regime which is bombing in defiance of the cessation of hostilities which is continuing its practice of death by a thousand paper cuts in starving Syria’s civilians”, United States ambassador to UN Samantha Power said.
Rebels have also accused Russian Federation of using the ceasefire to give the Syrian army and allied militias a chance to regroup and deploy forces.
“Unfortunately, the terrorists regroup and rearm with every truce and with every cancellation of hostilities”.
Abu Mohamed al-Jolani said “neither we nor rebel groups will allow the siege of Aleppo to continue”.
“[For example] who was meant to be advising whom, but I’m not going to get into the element of speculation”, he said.
The US military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russian Federation informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.
Also Sunday, Aleppo’s governor, Hussein Diab, called on insurgents in the eastern neighborhoods to turn themselves in, hand over their weapons and take advantage of an amnesty decree issued recently by Syrian President Bashar Assad. The UN has said both sides in the war are to blame for the delay of aid to Aleppo, where neither has yet withdrawn from the Castello Road.
Earlier on Monday Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military’s General Staff said in a briefing that Damascus had fulfilled its obligations.
“And if this agreement fails, the Syrian air force will know where to go to kill all of those rebels that we’ve been supporting”.
SANA quotes an unnamed military official as saying Sunday that dozens of IS fighters were killed in the offensive under the cover of Syrian airstrikes.
Also Monday, the opposition reported 254 violations by government forces and their allies since the truce started on September 12. Two U.S. officials also confirmed that a tank was among the vehicles hit in the strike, raising more questions about what kind of intelligence led the coalition aircraft to conclude Islamic State militants were operating the military equipment. Though it is unclear which other countries were involved in the deadly airstrike, the Australian Defense Ministry acknowledged on Sunday that its warplanes had participated in the attack.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the US -led coalition struck army positions in Tharda mountain and a nearby artillery division, killing 90 troops and wounding 110.
The air attack cost the lives of at least 60 Syrian soldiers, while an additional 100 were wounded.
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that 29 children and teenagers are among those killed, as well as 17 women.
