Assad gloats as rebels retreat
Russia and the Assad regime have escalated their offensive in northwest Syria, defying criticism from United Nations officials who accused them of again deliberately striking hospitals and schools.
The offensive against a coalition of jihadists and other rebels may be approaching its final stages, with the army and its allied Shia militias within 16 kilometres of the Turkish border.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has claimed victory in west Aleppo, where suburbs and surrounding towns and villages were cleared of rebels in a giant sweeping movement over the weekend.
Air strikes have continued, killing civilian men, women and children, UN relief officials say. Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said the regime was responsible for a humanitarian crisis.
‘‘Entire families, some who have fled from one corner of Syria to the other over the course of the past decade, are tragically finding that bombs are part of their everyday life,’’ she said. ‘‘How can anyone justify carrying out such indiscriminate and inhumane attacks?’’
Bachelet called for the creation of humanitarian corridors in Idlib, though it was unclear where civilians could be offered safe passage to.
The regime’s assault on the Idlib pocket, which includes slivers of Aleppo and Latakia provinces, began in April with Russian air support. After initial slow progress and strong counterattacks by the jihadist-led rebels, the regime side has advanced swiftly in recent weeks.
Between a third and a half of the pocket, as it stood in April, has been returned to regime control, including the M5 highway that connects Aleppo city to the rest of the country.
Assad, in a rare televised address, declared Syria’s second city officially ‘‘liberated’’.
‘‘This liberation does not mean the end of the war, and does not mean the end of the schemes, nor the end of terrorism or the surrender of enemies,’’ he said. ‘‘But it means that we rubbed their noses in the dirt as a prelude for complete victory and ahead of their defeat, sooner or later.’’
He appeared to have won the continued support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, his most important political ally. A Turkish delegation was in Moscow to plead for Russia to stall the advance, but without success.
A Russian foreign ministry statement reiterated Moscow’s position that ‘‘Idlib’s long-term security could only be achieved through Syrian sovereignty and territorial independence’’ – code for the defeat of the rebels and the removal of Turkish forces from Syria.
Almost a million civilians – 60 per cent of them estimated to be children – are on the move or sheltering in freezing refugee camps, trapped by the regime advance. More than half the enclave’s 3.5 million current residents have fled from elsewhere in Syria during the civil war, and many fear retribution.
Since the beginning of December alone, the total number of displaced people has reached 900,000, according to the UN.
Bachelet said 298 civilians had died so far this year in the fighting, 93 per cent of them as a result of bombing and shelling by the regime and its Russian backers.