Putin’s giant flamethrower rockets attack Aleppo
Russia faced accusations yesterday that it had deployed a weapon that blasts a massive ball of flame across wide areas in Aleppo. Fears are growing that Moscow’s allies are trying to obliterate the opposition enclave in the ruins of the city.
The TOS-1A launcher has been dubbed the ‘‘Blazing Sun’’. The 24-rocket fusillades it fires cause chemical explosions designed to suck up all the oxygen in the target zone.
Western diplomats yesterday said they were ‘‘reasonably confident’’ the rocket launcher has been in action in Aleppo. Fires have broken out after multiple explosions since the short ceasefire in the Syrian civil war broke down. ‘‘We’re looking into whether the Russians are using weapons we haven’t seen before, like the TOS-1A, which is basically a huge flamethrower,’’ said one western diplomat. ‘‘It’s one step down from a nuclear weapon.’’
Certainly the residents of Aleppo are sounding the alarm that the intensity of the onslaught has reached levels unseen until now. Bombardment of the city’s water-pumping stations has cut mains water and targeted strikes have destroyed many of the emergency clinics.
‘‘What has happened in the last three days is the worst we’ve ever had. It’s a war crime. This never happened before,’’ said Deyaa alAbsei, an aid worker in eastern Aleppo whose home was destroyed in an airstrike on Saturday for the second time in two months. ‘‘I think they want to destroy the city and they want to destroy all the life of the people. What is happening in Aleppo is a holocaust.’’
The attempt to bring a political solution to the five-year war through a Russia-US-brokered ceasefire was dealt a grievous blow last week when an UN aid convoy was attacked by what were thought to be Russian aeroplanes. Washington has blamed Moscow for the incident, in which about 20 people were killed. Russia fiercely disputes the claim.
Ten months of gruelling political negotiations led by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, lay in tatters in the aftermath. An entire cycle of peacemaking negotiations had reached a conclusion and diplomats fear a political solution to the conflict is further away than ever.
‘‘There’s an element of clarity now. Of all the strikes we’ve seen, the one on the UN convoy was the clearest indication yet that the Russians were involved,’’ the western diplomat said.
Flamethrowers have been used in earlier conflicts, including the Second World War and Vietnam, but most countries had decided they were not effective or appropriate in modern combat scenarios.
Pictures published earlier this month show what appears to be a TOS-1A targeting the outskirts of Aleppo. The TOS-1A fires rockets tipped with thermobaric warheads whose fuel creates a pressurised explosion, sucking in oxygen. Anyone within a 200m radius can be burnt alive. Taking cover or wearing body armour offers no protection against fuel-air explosives.