“Can you hear it?” The neighbourhood is getting hit right now by missiles. “We can hear the planes right now”, Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist, told reporters.
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Kerry reaffirmed the USA commitment to bringing an end to the Syrian civil war, which is entering its sixth year, but cited the need for Syrian leaders and their Russian allies to “do their part”.
“I woke up to a powerful natural disaster though I was in a place far away from where the missile landed”, he said in a voice recording sent to Reuters.
There was no way to immediately determine who was responsible for the alleged strikes on the White Helmets’ sites Friday, but members of the group claimed in messages to CBS News that it was Russian aircraft.
Hamza al-Khatib, the director of a hospital in the rebel-held east, told Reuters the death toll from the strikes was 45.
A Syrian military official said on Friday that airstrikes and shelling in Aleppo might continue for an extended period and the operation will expand into a ground invasion of rebel-held districts.
Syria’s Russian-backed military pressed ahead with airstrikes and shelling aimed at Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern sector – an offensive whose start was announced by the government on Thursday even as senior diplomats were holding talks in NY aimed at reviving a cease-fire that collapsed earlier this week.
A source told Xinhua that the political intelligence branch in Aleppo offered invitations to the civilians in eastern Aleppo to come to the government areas.
Russia, which intervened past year to prop up Assad, fears turmoil in his absence and thinks his regime is too fragile for major change, say multiple Russian foreign policy sources.
Huge blazes erupted in Syria’s Aleppo as the city was rocked by fighting and air strikes on Thursday, ahead of last-ditch efforts by world powers to salvage a failed ceasefire.
Airstrikes continued Friday morning, with three out of four Syrian Civil Defense centers under fire, according to a tweet by the civil defense.
One rescue worker described what happened as “annihilation”.
Diplomats believe the US-Russian Geneva process is the only available hope to end the 5-year conflict, but Moscow and Washington have fallen out spectacularly. It included a nationwide truce, improved humanitarian aid access and the possibility of joint military operations against al Qaeda-lined Nusra Front and Islamic State.
-Russian impasse was to persuade Russia to renew a seven-day ceasefire, but that Lavrov had shown no inclination to accept it. Lavrov said the US had originally asked for three days on Wednesday, which Moscow had accepted, before on Thursday asking for a seven-day ceasefire.
The meeting came after Assad told The Associated Press in an interview in Damascus that the United States was to blame for the deal’s failure.
The United States and Russian Federation failed to agree on how to revive a short-lived ceasefire in Syria during what the U.N.
The International Syria Support Group, including Moscow, Washington and other major powers, met on the sidelines of the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders in NY.
“I am no less determined today than I was yesterday, but I am even more frustrated”, Kerry said.
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Kerry has called for the grounding of aircraft over key aid routes, a proposal that Moscow has described as unworkable.
