Battle for Syria’s largest city grows
Syrian government, Russian allies push campaign to recapture Aleppo; more than 200 civilians killed
BEIRUT — With international diplomacy in tatters and the U.S. focused on its election, the Syrian government and its Russian allies are seizing the moment to wage an all-out campaign to recapture Aleppo, unleashing the most destructive bombing of the past five years and pushing into the center of the Old City.
Desperate residents describe horrific scenes in Syria’s largest city and onetime commercial center, with hospitals and underground shelters hit by indiscriminate airstrikes that the United Nations said may amount to a war crime.
Debris covers streets lined with bombed-out buildings, trapping people in their neighborhoods and hindering rescue workers. On Tuesday, activists reported at least 23 people killed in airstrikes on two districts in the rebel-held part of Aleppo. And Syrian state television reported that troops loyal to President Bashar Assad had captured the rebel-held neighborhood of Farafra, near the city’s medieval citadel.
The battle for Aleppo is unlikely to be an easy one for government forces because the isolated rebels say they are determined to “fight until the end” to defend their neighborhoods. Insurgents outside the city could also attack government troops to try to reduce pressure on comrades trapped inside.
If government forces and their allies capture the rebelheld eastern neighborhoods, it would be a turning point in the 5½-year-old civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced half of Syria’s population.
Over the course of the conflict, the government has slowly regained control of major cities.
Its aim appears to be securing what some analysts call “useful Syria” — a portion containing the four largest cities of Aleppo, Damascus, Homs and Hama, along with its Mediterranean coast.
Aleppo is the last of the major cities still being contested, and it could take government forces between six months and a year to capture it, unless they aim to “annihilate” the politically significant city, a Western diplomat told The Associated Press.
Once all of “useful Syria” is in government hands, international diplomacy would have to determine the fate of the jihadi-controlled northwest and those areas dominated by the main Kurdish militia and the Islamic State militant group.
Assad “doesn’t want a negotiation,” the diplomat said, adding that “the Russians wouldn’t or couldn’t stop him” from attacking Aleppo.
Opposition forces control almost half of Aleppo, the only major city where rebels hold such a large area. The U.N. says more than 250,000 people live in the rebel-held areas, while more than 1 million are in the government-controlled part that is usually subjected to shelling.
Assad’s government controls the capital of Damascus, except for two small neighborhoods. It also controls all of Homs and Hama, the third- and fourthlargest cities.
Since the one-week ceasefire brokered by Russia and the U.S. ended Sept. 19, Aleppo has been under intense Russian and Syrian airstrikes, killing more than 200 civilians, knocking down entire buildings, disrupting water supplies and targeting Civil Defense centers. At least one of the eight remaining clinics in the city was put out of service.
Attempts to revive the cease-fire during the U.N. General Assembly failed, and U.S. Ambassador Samantha Powers harshly criticized Russia, saying Moscow was practicing “barbarism.” There was no progress on diplomatic efforts to halt the bloodshed Tuesday.