Deal to evacuate Aleppo collapses
Assad forces resume air and artillery strikes as buses intended to transport civilians and fighters are turned back
BEIRUT// A deal to evacuate fighters and civilians trapped in east Aleppo’s remaining rebel-held pockets was suspended yesterday – just hours after the agreement was hatched.
Transport was set to begin at 5am local time yesterday as part of a deal mediated by Russia and Turkey on Tuesday evening. But by yesterday morning Aleppo was again under fire, with government forces eventually launching air and artillery strikes on the small chunk of territory still controlled by the rebels. Buses sent to evacuate civilians and fighters turned back as violence returned to the city after a brief pause.
Russia blamed the rebels, saying they had attacked government forces. The rebels, however, blamed Iran for trying to impose its own conditions on the deal and using the militias it backs in Syria to block the evacuation.
After hostilities resumed, Russia claimed Syrian government forces had captured another neighbourhood, Sukkari, cutting rebel- held territory to a mere 2.5 square kilometres. With so many armed factions active in Aleppo on both sides – many of them with divergent goals and ambivalent towards deals struck by others – a smooth evacuation was never likely. But the government’s resumption of air and artillery strikes marks a significant escalation and appears to undo much of the careful negotiation that brokered the deal. It also highlights how the Syrian government’s allies on the ground are able to radically manipulate the situation for their own ends.
Yesterday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported that 1,000 civilians who had left eastern Aleppo were being held at an Iranian militia checkpoint outside the city, despite being allowed to pass through a Russian checkpoint.
With the plan disintegrating, a media arm of Hizbollah – another key ally of the Syrian government – said that any agreement on Aleppo needed the approval of all sides involved in the conflict, including Iran, with a “comprehensive look at the battlefield and humanitarian developments in other areas”.
Matters were further complicated when Iran and its associated militias in Syria appeared to press for Shiite towns under rebel siege in Idlib province to be evacuated too. Syrian rebels in Idlib responded by shelling Foua and Kefraya, the two besieged villages that Iran wanted to rescue.
Including those villages in the Aleppo evacuation deal would be difficult because it would require even more parties to come to the already crowded negotiating table with even more scope for division. Any progress made at the 11th hour was swept away by events yesterday. No sooner had the rebels agreed to surrender their last redoubt in Aleppo than Russia was back to discussing military solutions to the conflict. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said he expected the rebels would cease resistance within the next three days.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the situation in Aleppo was tense but that there were “positive dynamics” regarding the advance of Syrian troops to recapture Aleppo.
Despite the latest developments and Moscow’s implacability, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed in a phone call on Wednesday to make a joint effort to start the evacuation of civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo as soon as possible, Turkish presidential sources said. Mr Erdogan told Mr Putin that Turkey was ready to take all possible measures to provide temporary shelter and humanitarian aid following the opening of safe corridors.
Mr Lavrov told US secretary of state John Kerry the Syrian government was prepared to provide rebels with safe passage out of Aleppo, but that opposition fighters had refused a ceasefire, according to the Russian foreign ministry.
The United Nations said there were about 250,000 civilians in eastern Aleppo’s rebel districts before the government offensive began last month. Russia said more than 110,000 have crossed over into government territory since then but many have opted to stay for fear of being detained, forcibly conscripted or even executed for their links – whether real or not – to the opposition.
Tuesday’s evacuation deal offered hope that trapped civilians might finally escape after enduring three months of total siege and bombardment.
Syrian journalist Zouhir Al Shimale, a contributor to The National who is based in eastern Aleppo, tweeted in anticipation on Tuesday night: “How am I going to cope with all [the kinds] of food that will be available, as we’ve been deprived for 3 constant months? But all done :)”
Instead, he and the other civilians remain trapped and under fire, with fewer and fewer places to hide.