Russia, Syria pause Aleppo airstrikes
Some are skeptical calm will last long enough to allow aid.
Russian and Syrian warplanes halted their bombardment of rebel-held districts in Aleppo on Tues- day, in what Russia called a gesture of goodwill ahead of an eight-hour unilateral “humanitarian pause” it has promised for Thursday.
The halt in aerial attacks came as residents reeled from days of shattering air- strikes that had intensified over the past week, killing scores of people, including 14 members of one family. It was unclear how long the break would last.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference Tuesday that he hoped the respite would allow talks “to finally separate” the al-Qaida-linked
Nusra Front and “those like it” from armed opposition groups supported by the
United States and its allies — a long-standing Russian demand. But rebel leaders are likely to reject that demand, and U.N. officials said that they had received no prior notifi- cation from Russia about the pause in the bombardment, that they had no knowledge of the corridors the Russian military said would be
opened to let civilians and militants out of the city, and that humanitarian agencies would not be able to send aid in or bring wounded out without more time and addi- tional guarantees.
The prospects for a last- ing halt in the bloodshed are clouded by the experience of last month, when weeks of negotiations between Russia and the United States yielded a cease-fire that had little buy-in from the combatants, lasted just a few days and ended with even worse violence.
Medical workers, residents and activists in the besieged rebel-held districts said they did not trust the Russian offer, as humanitarian groups expressed skepticism that the proposed pause would be long or solid enough to allow meaningful aid to be delivered to trapped civilians.
There was no word on whether rebel groups would halt mortar attacks on the government-held districts, which have killed and wounded several children in recent days. Residents of the rebel-held districts also reported that ground attacks and shelling by government forces were continuing in some areas, even as the airstrikes stopped.
Abdelkafi al-Hamdo, a schoolteacher and anti-government activist in eastern Aleppo, summed up the mistrust among his neighbors this way: “Russia kills many Syrians brutally. They pretend to be human by asking for a cease-fire . ... This cease-fire is not for us as Aleppo people, but this is for you respected journalists, to say Russia is reviving a cease-fire.”
The Russian announcement came days after Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, offered to escort fighters of the al-Qaida affiliate Nusra Front out of eastern Aleppo to the rebel-held province of Idlib.
Russia had signaled interest in the proposal, which according to diplomats was the subject of talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, in recent days. Those discussions included the main international players on Syria: Iran, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States.