MOSCOW/BEIRUT: Russia is sending more warplanes to Syria to further ramp up its campaign of airstrikes, a Russian newspaper reported on Friday, as Moscow defied global censure over an escalation that Western countries say has torpedoed diplomacy.
In a statement issued by the White House after the two leaders spoke by telephone, US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the Russian and Syrian bombing of Aleppo as “barbarous.”
Fighting intensified a week into a new Russian-backed government offensive to capture all of Syria’s largest city and crush the last remaining urban stronghold of the rebellion.
Moscow and its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, spurned a cease-fire this month to launch the offensive, potentially the biggest and most decisive battle in the Syrian civil war which is now in its sixth year.
Western countries accuse Russia of war crimes, saying it has deliberately targeted civilians, hospitals and aid deliveries in recent days to crush the will of 250,000 people trapped inside Aleppo’s besieged rebel-held sector.
Moscow and Damascus say they have targeted only militants.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the bombing and many hundreds more wounded, with little access to treatment in hospitals that lack basic supplies.
Residents say the airstrikes are unprecedented in their ferocity, deploying heavier bombs that flatten buildings on top of the people huddled inside.
Russia joined the war exactly a year ago, tipping the balance of power in favor of its ally Assad, who is also supported by Iranian ground forces and Shiite militia from Lebanon and Iraq.
The Kremlin said on Friday there was no time frame for Russia’s military operation in Syria. The main result of Russian airstrikes over the past year is “neither Daesh, nor Al-Qaeda nor the Nusra Front are now sitting in Damascus,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Britain’s Special Representative to Syria, Gareth Bayley, said: “From Russia’s first airstrikes in Syria, it has hit civilian areas and increasingly used indiscriminate weapons, including cluster and incendiary munitions.”
The Izvestia newspaper reported that a group of Su-24 and Su-34 warplanes had arrived at Syria’s Hmeymim base.
“If need be, the air force group will be (further) built up within two to three days,” it quoted a military official as saying. “Su-25 ground attack fighters designated to be sent to Hmeymim have already been selected in their units and their crews are on stand-by, awaiting orders from their commanders.”
The Su-25 is an armored twin-engine jet which was battle-tested in the 1980s during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It can be used to strafe targets on the ground, or as a bomber.
Syrian government forces and rebels fought battles on Friday in the city center and north of Aleppo, where government troops had re-captured a camp for Palestinian refugees on Thursday that had already changed hands once since the start of the attack.
The sides gave conflicting accounts of the outcome of Friday’s fighting. North of the city, the military said it had captured territory around the Kindi hospital near the refugee camp. Rebel sources denied the army had advanced there.
In the city center, the military said it had advanced in the Suleiman Al-Halabi district. Rebel officials said troops had moved forward but had subsequently been forced to withdraw.
A Syrian military source said government forces captured several buildings in the area and were “continuing to chase the remnants of the terrorists fleeing them.” One of the rebel officials said government forces had “advanced and then retreated,” losing “a number of dead.”
In a statement issued by the White House after the two leaders spoke by telephone, US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the Russian and Syrian bombing of Aleppo as “barbarous.”
Fighting intensified a week into a new Russian-backed government offensive to capture all of Syria’s largest city and crush the last remaining urban stronghold of the rebellion.
Moscow and its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, spurned a cease-fire this month to launch the offensive, potentially the biggest and most decisive battle in the Syrian civil war which is now in its sixth year.
Western countries accuse Russia of war crimes, saying it has deliberately targeted civilians, hospitals and aid deliveries in recent days to crush the will of 250,000 people trapped inside Aleppo’s besieged rebel-held sector.
Moscow and Damascus say they have targeted only militants.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the bombing and many hundreds more wounded, with little access to treatment in hospitals that lack basic supplies.
Residents say the airstrikes are unprecedented in their ferocity, deploying heavier bombs that flatten buildings on top of the people huddled inside.
Russia joined the war exactly a year ago, tipping the balance of power in favor of its ally Assad, who is also supported by Iranian ground forces and Shiite militia from Lebanon and Iraq.
The Kremlin said on Friday there was no time frame for Russia’s military operation in Syria. The main result of Russian airstrikes over the past year is “neither Daesh, nor Al-Qaeda nor the Nusra Front are now sitting in Damascus,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Britain’s Special Representative to Syria, Gareth Bayley, said: “From Russia’s first airstrikes in Syria, it has hit civilian areas and increasingly used indiscriminate weapons, including cluster and incendiary munitions.”
The Izvestia newspaper reported that a group of Su-24 and Su-34 warplanes had arrived at Syria’s Hmeymim base.
“If need be, the air force group will be (further) built up within two to three days,” it quoted a military official as saying. “Su-25 ground attack fighters designated to be sent to Hmeymim have already been selected in their units and their crews are on stand-by, awaiting orders from their commanders.”
The Su-25 is an armored twin-engine jet which was battle-tested in the 1980s during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It can be used to strafe targets on the ground, or as a bomber.
Syrian government forces and rebels fought battles on Friday in the city center and north of Aleppo, where government troops had re-captured a camp for Palestinian refugees on Thursday that had already changed hands once since the start of the attack.
The sides gave conflicting accounts of the outcome of Friday’s fighting. North of the city, the military said it had captured territory around the Kindi hospital near the refugee camp. Rebel sources denied the army had advanced there.
In the city center, the military said it had advanced in the Suleiman Al-Halabi district. Rebel officials said troops had moved forward but had subsequently been forced to withdraw.
A Syrian military source said government forces captured several buildings in the area and were “continuing to chase the remnants of the terrorists fleeing them.” One of the rebel officials said government forces had “advanced and then retreated,” losing “a number of dead.”
