Numerous media reports said US officials have reached the preliminary conclusion that Russian jets struck the convoy near Aleppo.
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Riad Hijab, general co-ordinator of the main umbrella group the High Negotiation Committee, said the opposition had proof Russian Federation and Syria were behind the convoy attack, but did not give details.
He said the United States prefers to continue with the ceasefire in Syria, but is concerned by Russia’s failure to show good faith. It does look like an air strike.
Red Cross spokesman Benoit Carpentier told reporters that the director of the Syrian Red Crescent’s sub-branch was killed, along with a number of civilians. He said all parties to the conflict had been notified of the convoy, which was meant to aid 78,000 people and “was clearly marked as humanitarian”.
President Barack Obama also seemed to reference the besieged aid workers in Syria during his remarks alongside Ban Tuesday: “Those in Syria and elsewhere who risk their lives to deliver aid to people in dire need. the entire world is in their debt”. The attack deprives thousands of civilians of much-needed food and medical assistance.
Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that after studying video taken at the scene they “did not find any signs of munitions hitting the convoy”.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon opened the assembly debate with a call to end the fighting in Syria.
The latest developments placed added importance on a meeting today of the International Syria Support Group, or ISSG, which is comprised of countries with a stake in the conflict and endorsed the truce, to be led by Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, announced it had suspended relief convoys in Syria, pending a review of the security situation.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said hope for a renewal of the ceasefire was “for now, very weak”, stressing that a truce could only be resumed if “terrorists” halted their fire.
Hussein Badawi, the head of the town’s Syrian Civil Defense search and rescue group – also known as the White Helmets – said that on the night of the attack he heard the sounds of overhead ballistic missiles, helicopters and fighter jets. Under terms of the agreement, the successful completion of seven days of calm and humanitarian aid deliveries would be followed by an ambitious second-stage plan to set up a joint US-Russian coordination centre to plan military strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front. “Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called it a ‘flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.
Syria is one of the most unsafe conflicts for humanitarian workers in the world.
Apart from the 12 killed in the convoy attack, 22 civilians died in attacks Monday across the province, according to the Observatory and Aleppo 24 News.
United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien said initial reports indicated many people had been killed or seriously wounded, including SARC volunteers, and that if the “callous attack” was found to be deliberate it amount to a war crime. That’s because President Obama has refused to allow other options, such as a US -defended safe zone for civilians or military action to ground the Syrian air force.
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He said damage to the convoy visible in footage was instead the result of its cargo catching fire, which had “oddly” occurred at the same time as militants had started a big offensive in nearby Aleppo. Earlier in the day, Kerry told reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly that the truce was “holding but fragile”.
