BRATISLAVA, Slovakia/BEIRUT, Lebanon: NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday the “morally totally unacceptable” bombardment of the Syrian city of Aleppo broke international law, and urged Russia to take genuine steps to restore a cease-fire.
He made the statement as Syrian government forces and their allies attacked the opposition-held sector of Aleppo on several fronts, the biggest ground assault yet in a massive new military campaign that has destroyed a US-backed cease-fire.
“The appalling attacks on Aleppo have shaken all of us, and the violence and the attacks we have seen, also on an aid convoy, is morally totally unacceptable and is a blatant violation of international law,” Stoltenberg told a news conference in Bratislava.
Stoltenberg did not identify the Syrian regime or its ally Moscow as being behind the pounding of the city by warplanes in which dozens of civilians including children have died, or a deadly attack on an aid convoy in Aleppo province last week.
But his comments came after Western powers slammed Russia over the violence with the United States accusing Moscow of “barbarism” and Britain and France alleging war crimes. Russia called that rhetoric “unacceptable.”
The United States said the assault on Aleppo is proof that President Bashar Assad and his Russian and regional allies have abandoned an international peace process to pursue victory on the battlefield after nearly six years of civil war.
Speaking after meeting EU defense ministers in the Slovakian capital, Stoltenberg said the ongoing violence “underlines the importance of finding a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria.”
“I join the international calls on Russia to show credible efforts to restore the cessation of hostilities, to allow humanitarian aid into Aleppo and to create the conditions necessary for UN-led transition talks to resume,” Stoltenberg said.
Ground attack
More than 250,000 civilians are believed to be trapped inside the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo, where intensive bombing over the past week has killed hundreds of people, many trapped under buildings brought down by bunker-busting bombs.
Only about 30 doctors are left inside, coping with hundreds of wounded each day who are being treated on the floors of hospitals that are bereft of supplies.
The World Health Organization called for the “immediate establishment of humanitarian routes to evacuate sick and wounded” from the besieged eastern part of the city.
Tuesday’s assault saw pro-government forces, which include the Syrian army and allied militia from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, attempt to attack Aleppo’s Old City near its historic citadel, as well as around several of the city’s major access points.
Troops advanced from the countryside to the north and south, rebels said, leading to intense clashes. The military and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, said the army had made some gains, but this was disputed by rebels who said they had held them off.
‘Ferocious confrontation’
Senior combatants on both sides said pro-government forces were massing in several parts of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, now divided into a western zone held by the army and a smaller, besieged area held by rebels.
The commander of an Iraqi Shiite militia fighting in support of Assad told Reuters a large force spearheaded by the army’s elite “Nimr,” or Tiger, forces had started to move in armored vehicles and tanks for an attack on rebel-held areas.
Quelling the uprising in the city would give Assad his biggest victory yet of the war and deliver a powerful blow to his enemies.
It is far from clear whether an all-out attempt to storm the rebel-held area is planned soon: that would require a massive assault by the army, backed by Lebanese and Iraqi Shiite militias, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Russian air power.
The government’s strategy in other locations such as Damascus and Homs has been to use years of siege and bombardment to force eventual surrender, rather than attempting to storm of well-defended territory.
However, Assad’s allies now openly say they have abandoned the peace process and are betting instead on military victory.
“There are no prospects for political solutions ... the final word is for the battlefield,” the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Shiite movement, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was quoted in a Lebanese newspaper as saying on Tuesday.
The head of Iran’s National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, was quoted on Tuesday as saying Aleppo’s fate would be determined only “through a forceful confrontation.”
Aleppo residents said ferocious air attacks of previous nights had abated somewhat. The Observatory said at least 11 people were killed in air strikes on Tuesday in two Aleppo neighborhoods.a
He made the statement as Syrian government forces and their allies attacked the opposition-held sector of Aleppo on several fronts, the biggest ground assault yet in a massive new military campaign that has destroyed a US-backed cease-fire.
“The appalling attacks on Aleppo have shaken all of us, and the violence and the attacks we have seen, also on an aid convoy, is morally totally unacceptable and is a blatant violation of international law,” Stoltenberg told a news conference in Bratislava.
Stoltenberg did not identify the Syrian regime or its ally Moscow as being behind the pounding of the city by warplanes in which dozens of civilians including children have died, or a deadly attack on an aid convoy in Aleppo province last week.
But his comments came after Western powers slammed Russia over the violence with the United States accusing Moscow of “barbarism” and Britain and France alleging war crimes. Russia called that rhetoric “unacceptable.”
The United States said the assault on Aleppo is proof that President Bashar Assad and his Russian and regional allies have abandoned an international peace process to pursue victory on the battlefield after nearly six years of civil war.
Speaking after meeting EU defense ministers in the Slovakian capital, Stoltenberg said the ongoing violence “underlines the importance of finding a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria.”
“I join the international calls on Russia to show credible efforts to restore the cessation of hostilities, to allow humanitarian aid into Aleppo and to create the conditions necessary for UN-led transition talks to resume,” Stoltenberg said.
Ground attack
More than 250,000 civilians are believed to be trapped inside the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo, where intensive bombing over the past week has killed hundreds of people, many trapped under buildings brought down by bunker-busting bombs.
Only about 30 doctors are left inside, coping with hundreds of wounded each day who are being treated on the floors of hospitals that are bereft of supplies.
The World Health Organization called for the “immediate establishment of humanitarian routes to evacuate sick and wounded” from the besieged eastern part of the city.
Tuesday’s assault saw pro-government forces, which include the Syrian army and allied militia from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, attempt to attack Aleppo’s Old City near its historic citadel, as well as around several of the city’s major access points.
Troops advanced from the countryside to the north and south, rebels said, leading to intense clashes. The military and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, said the army had made some gains, but this was disputed by rebels who said they had held them off.
‘Ferocious confrontation’
Senior combatants on both sides said pro-government forces were massing in several parts of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, now divided into a western zone held by the army and a smaller, besieged area held by rebels.
The commander of an Iraqi Shiite militia fighting in support of Assad told Reuters a large force spearheaded by the army’s elite “Nimr,” or Tiger, forces had started to move in armored vehicles and tanks for an attack on rebel-held areas.
Quelling the uprising in the city would give Assad his biggest victory yet of the war and deliver a powerful blow to his enemies.
It is far from clear whether an all-out attempt to storm the rebel-held area is planned soon: that would require a massive assault by the army, backed by Lebanese and Iraqi Shiite militias, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Russian air power.
The government’s strategy in other locations such as Damascus and Homs has been to use years of siege and bombardment to force eventual surrender, rather than attempting to storm of well-defended territory.
However, Assad’s allies now openly say they have abandoned the peace process and are betting instead on military victory.
“There are no prospects for political solutions ... the final word is for the battlefield,” the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Shiite movement, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was quoted in a Lebanese newspaper as saying on Tuesday.
The head of Iran’s National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, was quoted on Tuesday as saying Aleppo’s fate would be determined only “through a forceful confrontation.”
Aleppo residents said ferocious air attacks of previous nights had abated somewhat. The Observatory said at least 11 people were killed in air strikes on Tuesday in two Aleppo neighborhoods.a
