Rockets hammer eastern Aleppo, killing at least 29
Syrian opposition spurns American, Russian invitations
BEIRUT/CAIRO (Reuters) – Rockets struck eastern districts of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, on Friday, killing at least 29 people and trapping a family of 10 in the ruins of their home.
“There are families buried under the rubble,” said an activist named Baraa al-Youssef, speaking via Skype, after visiting the scene in his Ard al-Hamra neighborhood.
“Nothing can describe it, it’s a horrible sight,” he said.
Video footage posted by several activists showed a burning building and people carrying the wounded to cars to be ferried to hospital. It was hard to gauge the scale of the damage in the night-time footage, but rubble was clearly visible on the ground.
Rami Abdulrahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three explosions shook Aleppo and reported at least 29 people had been killed. Another 150 were wounded, he said, and the final death toll was likely to be higher.
Youssef said 30 houses were destroyed by a single rocket.
On Tuesday, activists said at least 20 people were killed when a large missile of the same type as Russian-made Scuds hit the rebel-held district of Jabal Badro.
The main Syrian opposition grouping has said it turned down invitations to visit Washington and Moscow to protest what it described as “international silence over destruction of the ancient city of Aleppo by Syrian missile strikes.”
A statement, late on Friday, by the Syrian National Coalition, an umbrella group of opposition political forces, said it also had suspended participation in a Friends of Syria conference of international powers due in Rome next month to protest the attacks it said have caused many civilian casualties.
“Hundreds of civilians have been killed by Scud missile strikes. Aleppo, the city and the civilization, is being destroyed systematically,” the statement said.
“The Russian leadership especially bears moral and political responsibility for supplying the regime with weapons,” it added, referring to Moscow's status as a leading ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“In protest of this shameful international stand, the coalition has decided to suspend its participation in the Rome conference for the Friends of Syria and decline the invitations to visit Russia and the United States.”
The invitations had been extended to opposition coalition leader Mouaz Alkhatib after he met the Russian and US foreign ministers in Munich this month. This was shortly after Alkhatib offered to negotiate Assad’s departure with members of the Syrian government, not tainted by participation in the crackdown on the 23-monthlong revolt.