Bombing ceasefire

RUSSIAN warplanes pounded rebel-held areas of Syria’s second city Aleppo early yesterday killing a couple and their three children, a monitor said, hours before Moscow announced a pause in its bombardment.

Moscow said both Russian and Syrian government warplanes stopped their bombing of the rebel-held east of the city at 10am in anticipation of an eight-hour humanitarian ceasefire it has announced for tomorrow.

But the pause was preceded by a heavy bombardment of rebel-held areas.

“Russian airplanes carried out intensive air strikes after midnight, targeting many districts of east Aleppo,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The group, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

Syrian government aircraft have also carried out intensive air strikes on rebel areas since Damascus launched an offensive to recapture the whole city on September 22.

More than 430 people have been killed in the bombardment of rebel areas, according to the Observatory.

The former commercial and industrial hub has been divided by a frontline slicing through its historic heart since rebels seized eastern districts in summer 2012.

One of yesterday’s pre-dawn strikes flattened an apartment block in the rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr district.

Three children and their parents were killed, the Observatory said.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the pause in the bombing campaign was intended to allow residents of rebel districts to prepare to evacuate during the promised ceasefire tomorrow.

The United Nations welcomed the planned ceasefire but said eight hours was not long enough to allow aid deliveries or the evacuation of those civilians, who wished to leave. — AFP