Aleppo skies still less deadly
Russia: Airstrike halt persists, evacuations remain on table
BEIRUT — The Russian military said Tuesday that the halt of Russian and Syrian airstrikes, now in its seventh day, on besieged eastern parts of the city of Aleppo will continue and that humanitarian corridors will remain open even as the Syrian army has unleashed a new offensive on the rebel-held neighborhoods.
Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the military’s General Staff said Tuesday that Russian and Syrian warplanes have stayed 6 miles away from Aleppo for a week. He said that “the moratorium on Russian and Syrian airstrikes on the city will be extended.”
Last week, Russia also declared a three-day break in fighting intended to allow the evacuation of both militants and civilians from Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern part. The rebels rejected the Russian offer, citing lack of security guarantees for the evacuees, and the planned evacuation of civilians also failed.
Rudskoi accused the rebels of preventing both civilians and the fighters willing to leave Aleppo from exiting the city.
While the Syrian army has resumed its offensive, Rudskoi said, six humanitarian corridors have remained open and new breaks in fighting could be negotiated to evacuate civilians.
He added that the Russian military and local authorities helped evacuate 48 women and children from eastern Aleppo the previous evening.
Those evacuations could not be independently confirmed. The United Nations has estimated that 275,000 people are trapped by the Syrian government’s siege of the rebel-held eastern parts of the contested city.
“We are ready to introduce ‘humanitarian pauses’ in the future as well at first request, but we will only do that if we have reliable information about the ill, the wounded and civilians ready to leave,” Rudskoi said.
Fighting resumed in Aleppo over the weekend, with pro-government forces mounting several assaults along the city’s front lines after the three-day pause. The attacks have been accompanied by Russian airstrikes on the outskirts.
But in contrast to the bombardment that devastated eastern Aleppo before the pause, clashes this week have been largely confined to the front lines, according to the Britain-based Syrian Obser- vatory for Human Rights, an activist group that tracks the civil war in Syria.
A spokesman for the area’s Civil Defense search-andrescue group said airstrikes on residential districts have decreased since last Oct. 18, when the Russian and Syrian militaries announced the pause in fighting. The spokesman, Ibrahim al-Haj, said shelling has not let up.
Yasser al-Youssef, a member of the Nour el-Din el-Zinki rebel group, said the corridors suggested by Russia lacked guarantees to ensure the safety of those evacuated. He said civilians are often subjected to either arrests or humiliation, or are sent to areas that are eventually bombed or targeted.
“We are responsible for the security of the civilians living in our areas,” he told reporters in text messages. “Any civilian who wants to use those ‘humanitarian corridors’ is risking his life because the risk of detention or killing is very high.”
On Monday, pro-government forces seized a strategic hilltop overlooking the city’s southern outskirts, only hours after Aleppo rebels boasted an offensive to break the government’s siege was “hours away.”
The government’s new position on the Bazo hilltop would complicate any rebel push, according to the Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman.
Ammar Sakkar, a military spokesman of the powerful Fastaqim rebel militia in Aleppo, denied the government advance was a setback for rebels and said preparations were underway for an “epic” battle in Aleppo.
Also, the Observatory and Aleppo’s Civil Defense team said three people were killed in air raids in Uram al-Kubra, a town west of Aleppo. The Observatory said there were other air raids in southern and western Aleppo province. There were no reports of casualties in those attacks.
NATO, meanwhile, said the alliance has begun surveillance flights along Turkey’s border with Syria and Iraq to support the international coalition effort against the Islamic State extremist group.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that the first flight took place Thursday and that more would happen soon. The flyovers will help the coalition “to get a better air picture,” he said.
The surveillance planes, which are being moved to Turkey from Germany, will help identify aircraft in northern Syria and Iraq and prevent accidents in warplane-filled skies. The Islamic State and its allies have no aircraft.
The U.S. has said it has evidence that Russian warplanes attacked an aid convoy in Syria last month. Russia has denied the allegations and said a U.S. drone might have done it.
NATO member Turkey, which has been supporting Syrian opposition forces in their push in northern Syria, carried out airstrikes last week against Kurdish positions in northwestern Aleppo province, as the two longtime foes jostle for territory held by the Islamic State in the area.
On Tuesday, a Kurdish leader and a news agency said Turkish shelling of the areas continued but that there were no reports of new air raids. The Turkish-Kurdish violence in Syria raised tensions in the area. Activists have reported a military buildup for rival groups in the area in recent days, including around Manbij, where Kurdish forces expelled Islamic State fighters this summer.