SYRIA TROOPS
gain vantage in Aleppo.
BEIRUT — Syrian government forces and their allies on Monday captured strategic high ground in embattled Aleppo as Russia — a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad — said it was not planning more “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting in the city’s eastern, rebel-held districts.
The fighting in Aleppo came as airstrikes hit towns in the northwestern province of Idlib, killing at least 13 people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees. The committees said the people killed were in the towns of Kfar Takharim and Khan Sheikhoun, where a market was hit.
Fighting resumed in Aleppo over the weekend, after a dayslong lull announced by Moscow that was meant to allow rebels and civilians to leave the eastern districts. The rebels rejected the Russian offer, and none of the civilians left.
Government troops launched a fresh offensive and on Monday took the hilltop of Bazo on the southern edge of Aleppo, near military bases, and shelled the rebel neighborhoods, according to opposition activists.
Russia’s foreign minister called on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to ensure that what he called terrorist groups are separated from so-called moderate opposition fighters in Syria.
Sergey Lavrov made the push in a Monday telephone conversation with Kerry, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Lavrov told Kerry that fighters occupying the eastern part of Aleppo fired on civilians during the pause.
The Observatory said Bazo was taken amid heavy bombardment. Both the Observatory and the Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, reported government shelling in eastern parts of the city.
A video released by the Syrian army showed tanks and cannons pounding rebel positions in the area. The Syrian Arab News Agency, meanwhile, said the rebels shelled government-held neighborhoods in western Aleppo, killing one person and wounding seven.
Syrian troops have besieged rebel-held parts of Aleppo for weeks, subjecting the districts to some of the worst air raids since a cease-fire brokered by the United States and Russia collapsed on Sept. 19. Opposition activists say more than 600 people have been killed in Aleppo and neighboring villages since then.
Ali Abu Odai al-Aloush, commander of Jaish al-Fatah, a hard-line Islamist rebel coalition, told the Qasioun News Agency that “zero hour has drawn near” and that his militants had begun moving toward Aleppo. It was unclear when the interview was recorded.
A spokesman for the Nour el-Din al-Zinki rebel faction in Aleppo said an operation to break the government’s siege of the rebel-held eastern districts of the city was “coming.”
The spokesman, Yasser alYousef,
said the rebels would not intentionally target civilians in Aleppo’s government-held districts, but warned of collateral damage from the anticipated operations.
In Moscow, Sergei Ryabkov, a deputy foreign minister, said Russia wasn’t planning another humanitarian pause in Aleppo anytime soon.
“In order to resume it, our opponents need to make sure the anti-government groups behave properly,” he said in comments carried by Russian news agencies, blaming the rebels for the fact that medical evacuations from eastern Aleppo, planned during the pause, were scrapped at the last moment.
“What needed to happen didn’t happen. … That’s why resuming a humanitarian pause is not on the agenda,” Ryabkov said. He also said that Moscow doesn’t expect any new round of Syria peace talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne until after the U.S. elections.
Also Monday, another deputy foreign minister, Gennady Gatilov, said Moscow was disappointed by the work of U.N. agencies during the Aleppo pause.
“Regrettably, it has to be acknowledged that over the three days of the declared cease-fire, the U.N.’s humanitarian agencies failed to realize this opportunity and help those who were in need to be removed from east Aleppo,” he was quoted as telling the news agency Interfax.
A U.N. spokesman said the organization is unable to provide humanitarian and medical assistance in besieged areas of eastern Aleppo because they lack adequate security guarantees.
Stephane Dujarric on Monday urged “all parties to facilitate an immediate and urgent medical evacuation of the sick and wounded and their family members.”