Russians join in new Aleppo bombing

Children among victims as shortage of food adds to Syrian war horror

SYRIAN government and Russian warplanes yesterday pounded rebel-held parts of northern Syria, including the battered second city Aleppo, where food aid rations were all but exhausted.

The renewed bombardment has killed at least 20 people, including nine children, in Aleppo alone in the last 24 hours, and sparked anger from the US and United Nations.

It comes as President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview that US President-elect Donald Trump could be a natural ally if he fights terrorists.

Damascus considers all those who oppose Assad’s government to be terrorists like the Islamic State (IS) group, which Trump has said should be the focus of US involvement in Syria.

Damascus and its ally Russia launched a wide-ranging assault on rebels on Tuesday, shattering a month of relative calm in the rebel-held east of devastated Aleppo. There were reports of heavy bombardment throughout the night and into the morning.

And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britishbased monitor, said at least 12 civilians, among them four children, had been killed in government air strikes and artillery fire yesterday.

The monitor said six people had been killed in strikes in the village of Kafr Jalis in Idlib on Tuesday night.

“The shelling targeted innocent civilians in their homes in Kafr Jalis, and there is a lot of destruction,” White Helmets civil defence unit member Yahya Arja said.

The bombardment ended a period of relative respite, particularly in eastern Aleppo, where Moscow halted air strikes on October 18 ahead of a series of brief ceasefires.

The ceasefires were intended to encourage residents and surrendering rebels to leave the east, but few did so, expressing fear of moving into government-held territory.

Food aid stockpiled in the east is all but exhausted, with international organisations and their Syrian partners saying they were distributing the final rations in recent days.

No aid has entered the eastern neighbourhoods since midJuly.

Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the war that has killed more than 300 000 people across the country since it started in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

Assad ally Russia intervened in September last year and announced on Tuesday that warplanes taking off from its aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov had carried out their first sorties in the country.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian forces were launching a “major operation” in Idlib and central Hom province, targeting IS. But the bombardment has been criticised by both the UN and Washington, with the General Assembly’s human rights committee voting overwhelmingly on Tuesday to condemn escalating attacks on civilians.

Washington said it strongly condemned the resumption of air strikes in Syria by the Russians as well as the Syrian regime.

Washington was an early backer of the uprising against Assad, and has supported the rebels fighting his government.

But that could change under the next administration, with Assad telling Portugal’s RTP state television on Tuesday that he welcomed Trump’s campaign comments suggesting Washington’s involvement in Syria should be focused exclusively on fighting jihadists.

Washington already leads an international coalition carrying out strikes against IS in Syria and Iraq, but it does not coordinate with Damascus and Assad’s government has condemned it as ineffective. – AFP