Battle for Aleppo rages
Government troops unleash barrage against rebels
WITH international diplomacy in tatters and the US focused on its election, the Syrian Government and its Russian allies are waging an all-out campaign to recapture Aleppo, unleashing the most destructive bombing of the past five years.
Residents described horrific scenes in Syria’s biggest city and one-time commercial centre, with hospitals and shelters hit by air strikes the UN said may amount to a war crime.
Debris covers streets lined with bombed-out buildings, trapping people and hindering rescue workers.
Activists have reported at least 23 people killed in air strikesstrikes on two districts in the rebel-held part of Aleppo.
The battle is unlikely to be an easy one for government forces because the isolated rebels say they are determined to “fight until the end”.
Insurgents outside the city could also attack government troops to try to reduce pressure on comrades trapped inside.
If government forces and their allies capture the rebelheld eastern neighbourhoods, it would be a turning point in the five-year-old civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced half of Syria’s population.
The government has slowly regained control of major cities. Its aim appears to be securing what some analysts call “useful Syria” — a portion containing the cities of Aleppo, Damascus, Homs and Hama, along with its Mediterranean coast.
Aleppo is the last of the major cities being contested, and it could take government forces six months to a year to capture it, unless they aim to “annihilate” the politically sig- nificant city, a Western diplomat said.
Once all of “useful Syria” is in government hands, international diplomacy would have to determine the fate of the jihadi-controlled northwest and those areas dominated by the main Kurdish militia and the Islamic State militant group.
President Bashar al-Assad “doesn’t want a negotiation”, the diplomat said, adding that “the Russians wouldn’t or couldn’t stop him” from attacking Aleppo.
AP