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Twelve people killed in strike on aid convoy in Aleppo

United Nations peace envoy Staffan de Mistura said all participants reconfirmed support for the truce, even if Assad’s military and the rebels weren’t always respecting it.

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The ICRC said around 20 civilians were killed as well as a staff member of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in the strike on the convoy, which hit 18 of the 31 trucks as well as the warehouse.

United Nations and U.S. officials said they were “disgusted” and “outraged” by the attack.

O’Brien, the United Nations humanitarian chief, said there is no excuse “for waging war on courageous and selfless humanitarian workers”, and warned that if they were deliberately targeted “it would amount to a war crime”.

In the northwestern province of Idlib Tuesday, activist Nayef Mustafa said planes circled over the town of Salqin, held by Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate in alliance with Islamist rebels.

O’Brien said initial reports indicate that “many people” were killed or seriously injured, including SARC volunteers.

However, several rebels and rescue workers said attacks were carried out both by jets firing very accurate missiles, which they presume to be Russian, and by low-flying jets and helicopters firing machine guns and dropping imprecise barrel bombs, which they presume to belong to the Syrian army.

Kerry will try to speak to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in NY, where leaders are gathered for the UN General Assembly, before Tuesday’s meeting.

Rudskoi said the rebels violated the truce 302 times since it took effect a week ago, killing 63 civilians and 153 Syrian soldiers.

“The Russians have the responsibility to refrain from taking such actions themselves, but they also have the responsibility to keep the regime from doing it”, one said.

The station says Monday’s airstrikes targeted IS positions in areas such as the Tharda Mountain, overlooking the airport of the city of Deir el-Zour.

The regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on Monday unilaterally announced the end of a cease-fire – sponsored by the U.S. and Russian Federation – that went into effect on 12 September. He denied that Russian warplanes or those of the Syrian government had conducted any airstrikes on the aid convoy.

“This step (cease-fire) was to constitute a real chance to stop the bloodshed”.

A correspondent with the AFP news agency in the city said artillery shelling and air strikes hit Sukkari and Amiriyah, two eastern districts.

Al-Halaby said that rebels in Aleppo province also claimed Russian aircraft were behind the attack.

Syria’s army declared the cease-fire over on Monday, hours before the strike. The truce between the Syrian opposition and government forces has already been severely tested by multiple violations, including President Bashar al-Assad’s refusal to let aid enter Aleppo as per the terms of the deal.

According to media reports, the USA -led coalition killed 62 Syrian government soldiers and injured some 100 others in airstrikes in eastern Syria’s province of Deir al-Zour Saturday.

The cease-fire was meant to halt all fighting and allow aid to reach besieged areas, at a time when pro-government forces, with Russian and Iranian military support, are in their strongest positions for years and civilians in many rebel-held areas are cut off from food and medical supplies.

The Syrian Center for Policy Research, an NGO that was until recently based in Damascus, has put the total death toll from conflict at more than 470,000.

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But in a sign of the increasing messiness of Syria’s overlapping wars, Washington was still on the defensive itself Tuesday.

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