Syrian regime deadly strikes could torpedo ceasefire: Qatar

Fighting erupts in Aleppo

DOHA, April 2, (Agencies): Qatar warned Saturday that Syrian regime air strikes that killed more than 30 people including children in a rebel-held town near Damascus could “torpedo” a fragile ceasefire in the country.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, reported that 33 people, including 12 children, died in air strikes Thursday on Deir al-Assafir, a town in the opposition stronghold of Eastern Ghouta.

“Qatar expresses its strong condemnation and concern over the massacre by Syrian regime forces targeting civilians in Deir al-Assafir ... in a violation of the cessation of hostilities agreement and related UN Security Council resolutions,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Eastern Ghouta is among the areas in Syria where a fragile ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia has been in place since February 27.

“This criminal shelling ... reflects the regime’s policy in killing civilians ... and threatens to torpedo” the ceasefire and “international efforts to reach a political solution” to end the country’s five-year war, said the statement, carried by the official Qatar News Agency.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia support Syrian rebels fighting the Russian- and Iranianbacked regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The United States said Thursday it was “appalled” by the Syrian government air strikes and France accused Assad’s regime of violating the ceasefire and trying to undermine efforts by the international community to resolve the conflict.

Qatar urged the Security Council to “assume its responsibilities to end these crimes, protect the Syrian people, and prevent (attempts to) undermine chances of reaching a political settlement to the Syrian crisis.”

UN-led talks on a peace deal are deadlocked over the fate of Assad, whom the opposition insists must leave power before a transitional government is agreed.

Syria’s partial ceasefire is unravelling, as fierce fighting between government forces and opposition fighters, including members of the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front, erupted Saturday outside the country’s second largest city of Aleppo.

At least 25 pro-government and 16 opposition fighters died in clashes south of Aleppo, where the Nusra Front and rebel militias captured a hill overlooking a major highway, a Britain-based monitoring group told The Associated Press.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighting continued throughout the day Saturday close to the village of Tel al-Ais, which overlooks the main road connecting Aleppo with the capital, Damascus.

Raids

The coordinated rebel and Nusra Front offensive follows weeks of air raids on opposition-held areas despite a “cessation of hostilities” that came into effect late February.

The truce agreement, the first of its kind in Syria’s five year war, excludes the Nusra Front and the Islamic State group.

But the Nusra Front is embedded with other groups throughout the country. The government has taken advantage of this ambiguity to strike and besiege oppositionheld areas across Syria.

Bombs fell near a school and a hospital in the eastern suburbs of Damascus Thursday, killing 33 civilians. Opposition officials, accusing the government, said the “massacre” threatened to derail the peace talks that are scheduled to resume in Geneva in two weeks.

Targeted

Government airstrikes also targeted the public square in the opposition-held city of Maarat Nouman in the northern Idlib province Friday, where residents had protested against the Nusra Front presence in the town.

These latest strikes appear to have caused some rebel factions to reassess their position on the cease-fire. A number of groups — including some nominally party to the truce agreement — acknowledged on social media that they were battling government forces.

The Islam Army, whose political coordinator heads the opposition delegation during halting peace talks in Geneva, announced it had killed 20 government soldiers in fighting outside Damascus Friday.

A spokesman for a US-backed division of the Free Syrian Army accused the government of scrapping the cease-fire and undermining the Geneva talks. The group said one of its fighters was killed in the offensive against government forces in the south Aleppo countryside.

“The truce is considered over,” Zakariya Qaytaz of the Division 13 brigade told AP through Twitter. “This battle is a notice to the regime.”

The United States and Russia, who engineered the cease-fire agreement, had hoped a halt in fighting would cause opposition factions to distance themselves from extremist groups such as the Nusra Front. Instead, factions seem to have united in their opposition to the government.

The nationalist Division 13 brigade is now fighting alongside Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, a powerful jihadist militia that is internally divided over its association with the al-Qaeda affiliate. Qaytaz said his faction remained wary of the Nusra Front after the latter stole their weapons and expelled them from Maarat al-Nouman in March.

The Nusra Front posted videos on social media showing mortars and tanks firing on what it said were government positions in the Aleppo countryside. The Observatory said the militant group was in control of Tel al-Ais, while Syria’s state news agency acknowledged fierce clashes in the area Friday. The Syrian opposition is not optimistic about upcoming peace talks in Geneva because there is no international will for a political transition, opposition member Riad Hijab told Al Araby Al Jadid television late on Friday.

The Syrian opposition has consistently said that it wants a halt in attacks on civilians and for the Geneva talks to result in a transitional governing body for Syria that does not include President Bashar al-Assad.

“There is no international will, especially from the US side, and I do not expect anything to come of the negotiations,” said Hijab, the coordinator for the Saudi-backed Higher Negotiation Committee (HNC), the main opposition bloc.