Syrian towns endure surge of attacks

Fighting lingers despite this year’s peace agreement

The New York Times

BEIRUT — A resurgence of deadly attacks by pro-government forces in de-escalation zones in Syria, including a triple airstrike on a busy marketplace that killed more than 50 people, is undermining an agreement portrayed by its sponsors as a crucial step toward ending the6½-year civil war.

The accord — reached this year between Russia and Iran, which are allied with Syria’s government, and Turkey, which backs some rebel groups — established four de-escalation zones where attacks were supposed to decrease and so help pave the way for a peace settlement.

The de-escalation zones encompass most of the remaining areas of Syria still held by insurgent groups, not including the Islamic State group. Under the agreement, the combatants are to refrain from new attacks, except against hardline groups that have not signed on to the pact. Longstanding sieges are to be lifted to allow free movement of goods and people.

But siege and bombardment tactics, mostly by the Syrian government against rebel-held areas, have continued despite the Astana accord, named for the Kazakh capital where it was struck. The recent uptick in attacks — and the lack of any outcry from international sponsors of the Astana deal — has bolstered skepticism from opponents of the Syrian government who doubted the deal’s good faith from the start.

This month, after a meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia issued a joint statement affirming the “importance of de-escalation areas as an interim step to reduceviolence in Syria.”

But days later, on Monday, airstrikes hit a marketplace in the rebel-held town of Atarib, which is in a deescalation zone in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo.

The marketplace was “completely destroyed,” said Ali Obeid, a witness who broadcast the aftermath on social media. His video and others showed desperation, suffering and bewilderment.

In one, a man paused next to someone he apparently recognized, whose head had been blown off. “God give your soul peace,” the man said. In another scene, a man called for help from the floor of a destroyed shop. He had lost a leg.

The attack came on the same day that Amnesty International issued a report condemning de-escalation zone violations and what it called the collective punishment of civilian populations in rebel-held areas.

Attacks in Atarib and elsewhere “highlight concerns about these so-called safe zones and whether they are really ever safe,” Rawya Rageh, a senior adviser to Amnesty who was a cowriter of the report, said in an email. “Time and again, civilians in Syria are finding nosafe place to take refuge.”

With the world’s attention focused on other issues in the Middle East, like the escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran that have sparked a political crisis in Lebanon, there has been little official outcry about violations of the de-escalation zones, where many armed and unarmed opponents of President Bashar Assad are concentrated.

International leaders consider the de-escalation zones a building block as preparations are being made for a new round of U.N.-backed peace talks in Geneva this month between the Syrian government and the main opposition coalition, and for separate Russian-backed talks between Syrian factions in the Russian town of Sochi.

Countries that are hosting millions of Syrian refugees, including Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, have cited those talks and the deescalation agreement as reasons to press for the refugees to return home.