Airstrikes hit UN aid convoy inside Syria

• A UN humanitarian aid convoy inside Syria was hit by airstrikes Monday, UN officials said, as the Syrian military declared that the weeklong U.S.-Russian-brokered ceasefire had failed.

With the truce apparently teetering, the U.S. brushed off Damascus’s assertions and said it’s prepared to extend the agreement, while Russia — after blaming rebels for the violations — suggested it could still be salvaged.

UN officials said the UN and Red Crescent convoy was delivering assistance for 78,000 people in the town of Uram al-Kubra, west of Aleppo city. Initial estimates indicate that at least 18 of the 31 trucks in the convoy were hit, as well as the Red Crescent warehouse in the area.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 12 were killed in the attack, mostly truck drivers and Red Crescent workers. The Syrian Civil Defence, the volunteer first responder group also known as the White Helmets, confirmed that casualty figure.

Jan Egeland, humanitarian aid co-ordinator in the office of the UN envoy for Syria, told The Associated Press in a text message that the convoy was “bombarded.”

Egeland added, “It is outrageous that it was hit while off-loading at warehouses.”

UN Humanitarian Chief Stephen O’Brien called on “all parties to the conflict, once again, to take all necessary measures to protect humanitarian actors, civilians, and civilian infrastructure as required by international humanitarian law.”

The convoy, part of a routine interagency dispatch operated by the Syrian Red Crescent, was hit in rural western Aleppo province. The White Helmets first responder group posted images of a number of vehicles on fire in the dead of the night.

Elsewhere at least 20 civilians were killed in fresh airstrikes on rebel-held Aleppo city and the surrounding areas, according to the Observatory. And Russia said government positions in southwestern Aleppo came under attack from militant groups, including a massive barrage of rockets.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that the first stage of the truce — which called for a week of calm and the delivery of humanitarian aid to several communities — had never really come to fruition.