However, he also repeated calls for the sustained delivery of humanitarian aid to Aleppo and other besieged communities. The government blamed some of the violence on an what it said was an insurgent assault, but another rebel official denied they had yet launched new attacks.
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Turnbull says Australian rules of engagement were to target the Islamic State movement.
“There are a number of circumstances around U.S. operations in Deir ez-Zor that suggest it’s not likely to have been an accident because [Daesh] and the Syrian Army have been engaged there for a very long time”.
“The Syrian army had announced a freeze on fighting until Sunday night, but as Russian Federation announced an extension, it will end on Monday at 7 p.m.”, the source told AFP. He said the USA has not even tried to get the opposition to hold its fire. -Russian targeting of jihadists including Islamic State and a faction formerly affiliated to al Qaeda.
On Sept. 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a nationwide cease-fire in Syria, which demands all warring sides stop attacks and airstrikes, and allow access to besieged areas, including Aleppo.
But the ceasefire deal has faced enormous challenges from the outset, including how to disentangle nationalist rebels backed by the West from jihadists not covered by the truce.
Iran is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and has sent high-ranking officers and other military forces to bolster his troops.
The UN’s aid chief, Stephen O’Brien, said on Monday that he was “pained and disappointed” that a 20-lorry aid convoy destined for eastern Aleppo was still stuck on the border with Turkey because it had not received necessary permissions and safety guarantees from the Syrian government.
Syria’s civil war and finding ways to stop it are expected to be a major topic at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in NY, starting Monday, and discussions between the main players may yet salvage the situation.
Three days later, Kirby reaffirmed that the USA “will continue to support the – those moderate opposition forces – those moderate forces, I should say, because they’re not – it’s not just about opposition – it’s not really about the opposition to Assad, it’s about the fight against Daesh”.
Up to 275,000 people remain trapped in that part of the city without food, water, proper shelter or medical care, he added. Such deliveries began only on Monday and were available only in limited areas, he said.
The Australian Defense Ministry, which is among those contributing to the effort, acknowledged in a statement Sunday that its warplanes had participated in a strike Saturday in Deir al-Zour, the eastern Syrian city where the attack occurred, on a front line between the Syrian army and the Islamic State that has changed hands many times.
“It is highly suspicious that the USA chose to conduct this particular air strike at this time”, Russia’s Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said, adding that the strike that killed Syrian soldiers did not look like an honest mistake.
Denmark says two of its F-16 fighter jets took part in the US -led air raid that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers over the weekend.
He says he regrets “the loss of life and injury to any Syrian personnel affected”.
Destroyed buildings in the central city of Homs, Syria.
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She said the believed Islamic State fighting position was a “legitimate target under the laws of armed conflict and it actually has no relationship to the proposed legislative changes”. He told journalists it would take place on Tuesday morning.
