The evacuation of Aleppo
Convoys of buses ferried thousands of people out of east Aleppo this week as Syrian government forces evacuated the city’s last remaining rebel enclaves. The operation followed a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia, the Syrian regime’s main supporter, and Turkey, which backs some large rebel groups. It is hoped the evacuation – which began last week, but was put on hold for several days owing to renewed outbreaks of fighting, and arguments over the precise ceasefire terms – will ease the suffering of east Aleppo residents, who have been living under siege in freezing temperatures, with scant supplies of food and water, and under constant bombardment. The displaced people are being transferred to west Aleppo and to rebel-controlled Idlib province.
The evacuation was held up by Iranian demands for a simultaneous evacuation of two pro-government Shia villages in Idlib province, which have been besieged by rebels for two years. On Sunday, al-qa’eda-linked militants set fire to buses that were about to transport the sick and injured from the two villages. But 500 people were eventually transported out, enabling the Aleppo operation to resume.
What the editorials said
“Grozny, Dresden, Guernica: some cities have made history by being destroyed,” said The Economist. Alas, ancient Aleppo is set to “join their ranks”. It’s extraordinary to remember now that when the first protests against Bashar al-assad’s regime started, in 2011, Sunnis marched “cheerfully alongside Shias, Christians and Kurds”. What a grim descent Syria has suffered since then, said The Observer. The numbers are mindboggling: “at least 500,000 killed, 1.9 million injured and more than half of the country’s 23 million population forced to flee their homes”.
With the capture of Aleppo, Assad and his patrons, Russia and Iran, have “decisively gained the upper hand” in this conflict, said the FT. It’s a defeat for the West, which committed itself at the outset of the war to the removal of Assad, but whose approach to the whole crisis has been “a case study in muddled thinking”. Donald Trump will “struggle to stamp his authority on this turmoil”. The US president-elect wants to put relations with Moscow on a friendlier footing, yet at the same time his incoming administration is deeply hostile to Iran, which is Russia’s main ally in Syria and which is working to expand its own influence in the country. “Before Washington can build a coherent Syria policy, it will have to navigate that conundrum.”