Tag Archives: Russia

War planes knock out Aleppo hospital as Russian backed assault intensifies

Medics inspect the damage outside a field hospital after an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Maadi neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria,

By Ellen Francis and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian or Syrian warplanes knocked a major Aleppo hospital out of service on Wednesday, hospital workers said, and ground forces intensified an assault on the city’s besieged rebel sector, in a battle that has become a potentially decisive turning point in the civil war.

Shelling damaged at least another hospital and a bakery, killing six residents queuing up for bread under a siege that has trapped 250,000 people with food running out.

The World Health Organization said it had reports that both hospitals were now out of service.

The week-old assault has already killed hundreds of people, with bunker-busting bombs bringing down buildings on residents huddled inside. Only about 30 doctors are believed to be left inside the besieged zone, coping with hundreds of wounded a day.

“The warplane flew over us and directly started dropping its missiles … at around 4 a.m.,” Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist at the M10 hospital, the largest trauma hospital in the city’s rebel-held sector, told Reuters.

“Rubble fell in on the patients in the intensive care unit.”

Medical workers at the M10 hospital said its oxygen and power generators were destroyed and patients were transferred to another hospital in the area. There were no initial reports of casualties in the hospital.

Photographs sent to Reuters by a hospital worker at the facility showed damaged storage tanks, a rubble strewn area, and the collapsed roof of what he said was a power facility.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian air power, Iranian ground forces and Shi’ite militia fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, has launched a massive assault to crush the rebels’ last major urban stronghold.

Syria’s largest city before the war, Aleppo has been divided for years between government and rebel zones, and would be the biggest strategic prize of the war for Assad and his allies.

Taking full control of the city would restore near full government rule over the most important cities of western Syria, where nearly all of the population lived before the start of a conflict that has since made half of Syrians homeless, caused a refugee crisis and contributed to the rise of Islamic State.

UNPRECEDENTED BOMBING

The offensive began with unprecedented bombing last week, followed by a ground campaign this week, burying a ceasefire that had been the culmination of months of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow.

Washington says Moscow and Damascus are guilty of war crimes for targeting civilians, hospitals, rescue workers and aid deliveries, to break the will of residents and force them to surrender. Syria and Russia say they target only militants.

The Syrian army said a Nusra Front position had been destroyed in Aleppo’s old quarter, and other militant-held areas targeted in “concentrated air strikes” near the city.

Another hospital, M2, was damaged by bombardment in the al-Maadi district, where at least six people were killed while queuing for bread at a nearby bakery, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring body and residents.

Food supplies are scarce in the besieged area, and those trapped inside often queue up before dawn for food.

The collapse of the peace process leaves U.S. policy on Syria in tatters and is a personal blow to Secretary of State John Kerry, who led talks with Moscow despite scepticism from other top officials in President Barack Obama’s administration. As the ceasefire crumbled last week, U.S. Republican Senator John McCain called Kerry “intrepid but deluded”.

BATTLEFIELD VICTORY

Washington says the offensive shows Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin have abandoned negotiations in order to seek battlefield victory, turning their backs on an earlier international consensus that no side could win by force. Assad’s Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah allies have said in recent days the war will be won in combat.

But the rebels remain a potent military force even as they have lost control of urban areas. The collapse of peace efforts ends a proposed scheme to separate Western-backed fighters from hardened jihadists.

Colonel Fares al-Bayoush, a rebel commander, told Reuters foreign states had given the insurgents a new type of Grad surface-to-surface rockets. The rockets, with a range of 22-40 km, had arrived in “excellent quantities” and will be used on battlefronts in Aleppo, Hama and the coastal region, he said.

A video posted on YouTube on Monday showed Free Syrian Army rebels firing Grad missiles at government positions near Aleppo. Bayoush said the weapons in the video were newly supplied.

MORE GROUND ATTACKS

A senior rebel official said pro-government forces were mobilizing in apparent preparation for more ground attacks in central areas of the city.

“There have been clashes in al-Suweiqa from 5 a.m. until now. The army advanced a little bit, and the guys are now repelling it, God willing,” a fighter in the rebel Levant Front group said in a voice recording sent to Reuters, referring to an area in the city center where there was also fighting on Tuesday.

Another rebel official said government forces were also attacking the insurgent-held Handarat refugee camp a few kilometers to the north of Aleppo.

“It doesn’t seem that their operation in the old city is the primary operation, it seems like a diversionary one so that the regime consumes the people on that front and advances in the camp,” the official, Zakaria Malahifij, head of the political office of the Fastaqim group, told Reuters from Turkey.

Pope Francis urged forces to stop bombing civilians in Aleppo, warning them on Wednesday they would face God’s judgment. Speaking in St. Peter’s Square, Francis called Aleppo “this already martyred city, where everybody is dying – children, old people, sick people, young people …

“I appeal to the consciences of those responsible for the bombings, who will one day will have to account to God.”

(Reporting by Tom Perry, Ellen Francis and Philip Pullella, writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership)

FBI Probes Hacks targeting phones of Democratic Party officials

The headquarters of the Democratic National Committee is seen in Washington,

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The FBI is investigating suspected attempts to hack mobile phones used by Democratic Party officials as recently as the past month, four people with direct knowledge of the attack and the investigation told Reuters.

The revelation underscores the widening scope of the U.S. criminal inquiry into cyber attacks on Democratic Party organizations, including the presidential campaign of its candidate, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

U.S. officials have said they believe those attacks were orchestrated by hackers backed by the Russian government, possibly to disrupt the Nov. 8 election in which Clinton faces Republican Party candidate Donald Trump. Russia has dismissed allegations it was involved in cyber attacks on the organizations.

The more recent attempted phone hacking also appears to have been conducted by Russian-backed hackers, two people with knowledge of the situation said.

Federal Bureau of Investigation representatives had no immediate comment, and a Clinton campaign spokesman said they were unaware of the suspected phone hacking.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) did not respond to a request for comment. An official of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said that nobody at the organization had been contacted by investigators about possible phone hacking.

Interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile told CNN: “Our struggle with the Russian hackers that we announced in June is ongoing – as we knew it would be – and we are choosing not to provide general updates unless personal data or other sensitive information has been accessed or stolen.”

FBI agents had approached a small number of Democratic Party officials to discuss concerns their mobile phones may have been compromised by hackers, people involved said. It was not clear how many people were targeted by the hack or whether they included members of Congress, a possibility that could raise additional security concerns for U.S. officials.

‘OFFICE BRAIN’

If they were successful, hackers could have been able to acquire a wide range of data from targeted cellphones, including call data, text messages, emails, photos and contact lists, one person with knowledge of the situation said.

“In a sense, your phone is your office brain,” said Bruce Schneier, a cyber security expert with Resilient, an IBM company, which is not involved in the investigation. “It’s incredibly intimate.”

“Anything that’s on your phone, if your phone is hacked, the hacker can get it.”

The FBI has asked some of those whose phones were believed to have hacked to turn over their phones so that investigators could “image” them, creating a copy of the device and related data.

U.S. investigators are looking into whether hackers used data stolen from servers run by Democratic organizations or the private emails of their employees to get access to cellphones, one person said.

Hackers previously targeted servers used by the DNC, the body that sets strategy for the party, and the DCCC, which raises money for Democrats running for seats in the House of Representatives, officials have said.

Clinton said during Monday’s presidential debate there was “no doubt” Russia has sponsored hacks against “all kinds of organizations in our country” and mentioned Russian President Vladimir Putin by name.

“Putin is playing a really tough, long game here. And one of the things he’s done is to let loose cyber attackers to hack into government files, to hack into personal files, hack into the Democratic National Committee,” Clinton said.

Trump countered that there was no definitive proof that Russia had sponsored the hacks of Democratic organizations.

“I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC,” he said. “It could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people.”

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Grant McCool)

Kerry defends diplomacy as Russian-backed forces pound Aleppo

People dig in the rubble in an ongoing search for survivors at a site hit previously by an airstrike in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighborhood of Aleppo,

By Patricia Zengerle and Lisa Barrington

CARTAGENA, Colombia/BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry defended his efforts to negotiate with Moscow over the war in Syria on Monday, despite the collapse of a ceasefire that has led to a massive Russian-backed assault on the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo.

Medical supplies were running out in eastern Aleppo, with victims pouring into barely functioning hospitals as Russia and its ally President Bashar al-Assad ignored Western pleas to stop the bombing of the last major urban area in opposition hands.

Moscow and Damascus launched their assault last week despite months of negotiations led by Kerry that resulted in a short-lived ceasefire this month. The secretary of state’s diplomatic overtures to Moscow had faced scepticism, including from other senior officials within the U.S. administration.

Kerry said his failed ceasefire was not the cause of the fighting, and the only way to stop the war was to talk. He lashed back at critics, including Republican senator John McCain, who described him last week as “intrepid but delusional” for putting too much faith in Russia.

“The cause of what is happening is Assad and Russia wanting to pursue a military victory,” Kerry told reporters during a trip to Colombia. “Today there is no ceasefire and we’re not talking to them right now. And what’s happening? The place is being utterly destroyed. That’s not delusional. That’s a fact.”

The Syrian government offensive to recapture all of Aleppo, with Russian air support and Iranian help on the ground, has been accompanied by bombing that residents describe as unprecedented in its ferocity.

Some 250,000 civilians remain trapped in the besieged, opposition-held sector of Syria’s biggest city. Hundreds of people, including dozens of children, have been reported killed since Thursday night by an onslaught that includes bunker-busting bombs that bring down whole buildings.

In a tense confrontation at the United Nations over the weekend, the United States called Russia’s bombing in support of Assad “barbarism”, and said Russia was killing civilians, medical staff and aid workers.

Moscow and Damascus say they are bombing only militants, although video from Aleppo has repeatedly shown small children being dug out of the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Inside the rebel-held sector of what was once Syria’s largest city, there are only about 30 doctors left, coping with scores of fresh wounded every day.

“Aleppo city’s hospitals are overwhelmed with wounded people … Things are starting to run out,” said Aref al-Aref, an intensive care medical worker, who spoke from Aleppo.

“We are unable to bring anything in … not equipment and not even medical staff. Some medical staff are in the countryside, unable to come in because of the siege,” he said.

Bebars Mishal, a civil defense worker in rebel-held Aleppo, said overnight bombardment continued until 6 a.m. (0300 GMT).

“It’s the same situation. Especially at night, the bombardment intensifies, it becomes more violent, using all kinds of weapons, phosphorous and napalm and cluster bombs,” Mishal told Reuters.

“Now, there’s just the helicopter, and God only knows where it will bomb. God knows which building will collapse,” he said. “Everybody is scared … unable to go out. They don’t know what to do, or where to go.”

Russia and Assad appear to have abandoned diplomacy last week, betting instead on delivering a decisive military blow against the president’s enemies on the battlefield. Capturing rebel districts of Aleppo would be the biggest victory of the war so far for Assad, crushing the revolt in its last major urban stronghold.

NO RESPITE

Indicating there would be no respite soon, the Syrian army issued a statement reiterating its call for civilians to steer clear of rebel positions and bases in eastern Aleppo.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring body, says at least 237 people, including at least 38 children, have been killed in Aleppo and nearby countryside since the army declared the end of the ceasefire a week ago. Civil defense workers in opposition territory put the death toll at 400.

The rebel-held sector of Aleppo is completely encircled, making it impossible to receive supplies. The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) charity group said this week in a statement that only 30 doctors remained inside.

“We have patients who will die in the dozens if they are not evacuated,” Osama Abo Ezz, a general surgeon and Aleppo coordinator for SAMS, told Reuters, speaking from an area near Aleppo.

“The medical staff is insufficient and completely exhausted. The blood bank refrigerators are completely empty. Vital medicines have almost run out. The ICU beds are insufficient and always full. The CT scanner is out of order,” he said.

Residents say the air strikes are using more powerful bombs than ever. A Syrian military source told Reuters on Saturday that weapons were being used that could destroy rebel tunnels and bunkers, dug out during years of opposition control.

A water pumping station serving eastern Aleppo has been destroyed. A spokesman for the World Health Organisation said a technical mission was visiting it to assess damage.

“We don’t know how long it will take to restore the functionality,” said the spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic.

Rescue efforts during the bombing have been hampered because damage has made roads impassable and because civil defense centers and rescue equipment have themselves been struck.

DIPLOMACY

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war between Assad’s government and insurgents, and 11 million driven from their homes. Much of the east of the country is now in the hands of Islamic State fighters, the enemies of all other sides.

Since Russia joined the war a year ago to support Assad’s government, the administration of President Barack Obama has been engaged in intensive diplomacy with Moscow, trying to end the war between the government and most insurgent groups and turn the focus toward the common fight against Islamic State.

But the latest escalation has left U.S. Syria policy in tatters, all but destroying any hope of a breakthrough before Obama leaves office next year.

The Kremlin said on Monday tough Western condemnation might hinder any resolution to the crisis. Moscow saw “absolutely no prospect” for holding a summit on Syria, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Moscow blames Washington for the failure of the ceasefire, arguing that the United States failed to prevent rebels from using the truce to regroup.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut, Joseph Nasr in Berlin and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; writing by Peter Graff and Tom Perry; editing by Andrew Roche)

U.S., Russia trade blows over Syria as warplanes pound Aleppo

A man walks on the rubble of damaged buildings after an airstrike on the rebel held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria September 25, 2016.

By Michelle Nichols and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

UNITED NATIONS/AMMAN (Reuters) – The United States accused Russia of “barbarism” in Syria on Sunday as warplanes supporting Syrian government forces pounded Aleppo and Moscow said ending the civil war was almost “impossible”.

A diplomatic solution to the fighting looked unlikely as U.S. and Russian diplomats disagreed at a U.N. Security Council meeting called to discuss the violence, which has escalated since a ceasefire collapsed last week.

Rebels, who are battling President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for control of Aleppo, said any peace process would be futile unless the “scorched earth bombing” stopped immediately.

Capturing the rebel-held half of Syria’s largest city, where more than 250,000 civilians are trapped, would be the biggest victory of the civil war for Assad’s forces.

They have achieved their strongest position in years thanks to Russian and Iranian support and launched a fresh offensive for a decisive battlefield victory on Thursday. Residents and rebels say thousands have been killed in the new strikes.

“What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counter terrorism, it is barbarism,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told the 15-member council.

“Instead of pursuing peace, Russia and Assad make war. Instead of helping get lifesaving aid to civilians, Russia and Assad are bombing the humanitarian convoys, hospitals, and first responders who are trying desperately to keep people alive.”

The French and British foreign ministers also took aim at Russia, saying it could be guilty of war crimes.

But Russia defended its position.

“In Syria hundreds of armed groups are being armed, the territory of the country is being bombed indiscriminately and bringing a peace is almost an impossible task now because of this,” Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council.

SCORCHED EARTH

In the first major advance of the new offensive, Syrian forces seized control of the Handarat Palestinian refugee camp, north of Aleppo.

Rebels counter attacked and said on Sunday they had retaken the camp before the bombing started.

“We retook the camp, but the regime burnt it with phosphorous bombs,” said Abu al-Hassanien, a commander in a rebel operations room that includes the main brigades fighting to repel the army assault.

The army, which is also being helped by Iranian-backed militias, Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah militant group and a Palestinian militia, acknowledged rebels had retaken Handarat.

“The Syrian army is targeting the armed groups’ positions in Handarat camp,” a military source was quoted on state media as saying.

Planes continued to pound residential areas on Sunday, flattening buildings, rebels and residents said.

“The Assad regime and with direct participation of its ally Russia and Iranian militias has escalated its criminal and  vicious attack on our people in Aleppo employing a scorched earth policy to destroy the city and uproot its people,” a statement signed by 30 mainstream rebel groups said on Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said at least 45 people, among them 10 children, were killed in eastern Aleppo on Saturday.

Boys pose while playing in the rebel-held Douma neighbourhood of Damascus, Syria September 25, 2016.

Boys pose while playing in the rebel-held Douma neighbourhood of Damascus, Syria September 25, 2016. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

The army says it is targeting only militants.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war and 11 million driven from their homes.

DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS

Russia and the United States agreed on Sept. 9 a deal to put the peace process back on track. It included a nationwide truce and improved humanitarian aid access but it collapsed when an aid convoy was bombed killing some 20 people.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who hammered out the truce in months of intensive diplomacy, pleaded with Russia to halt air strikes.

U.N. Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura appealed to the Council meeting to come up with a way to enforce a ceasefire.

“I am still convinced that we can turn the course of events,” he said, adding that he would not quit trying to bring peace in Syria.

However, Russia is one of five veto powers on the council, along with the United States, France, Britain and China. Russia and China have protected Assad’s government by blocking several attempts at council action.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Russia was guilty of prolonging the war in Syria and may have committed war crimes by targeting an aid convoy.

“We should be looking at whether or not that targeting is done in the knowledge that those are wholly innocent civilian targets, that is a war crime,” he said in a BBC interview aired on Sunday.

The rebels said they could not accept Russia as a sponsor of any new peace initiative “because it was a partner with the regime in its crimes against our people”.

It said Russian-backed Syrian forces were using napalm and chemical weapons without censure from the international community.

Smoke rises behind the ancient castle of the rebel-controlled town of Maaret al-Numan after airstrikes in Idlib province, Syria,

Smoke rises behind the ancient castle of the rebel-controlled town of Maaret al-Numan after airstrikes in Idlib province, Syria, September 25, 2016. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

U.N. investigators are looking into the alleged use of the incendiary weapons phosphorus and napalm in several cities.

The war has ground on for nearly six years, drawing in   world powers and regional states. Islamic State – the enemy of every other party to the conflict – has seized swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

World powers appeared to believe that neither Assad nor his opponents were capable of decisive victory on the battlefield.

But Russia’s apparent decision to abandon the latest peace process could signal it now thinks that victory is in reach, at least in the western cities where the majority of Syrians live.

Assad’s fortunes improved a year ago when Russia joined the war on his side. Since then, Washington has worked hard to negotiate peace with Moscow, producing two ceasefires. But both proved short-lived, with Assad showing no sign of compromise.

Outside Aleppo, anti-Assad fighters have been driven mostly into rural areas. Nevertheless, they remain a potent fighting force, which they demonstrated with an advance of their own on Saturday.

(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in New York; Writing by Anna Willard; Editing by Alison Williams and Adrian Croft)

Probe of leaked U.S. NSA hacking tools examines operative’s ‘mistake’

The logo of the U.S. National Security Agency

By Joseph Menn and John Walcott

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. investigation into a leak of hacking tools used by the National Security Agency is focusing on a theory that one of its operatives carelessly left them available on a remote computer and Russian hackers found them, four people with direct knowledge of the probe told Reuters.

The tools, which enable hackers to exploit software flaws in computer and communications systems from vendors such as Cisco Systems and Fortinet Inc, were dumped onto public websites last month by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers.

The public release of the tools coincided with U.S. officials saying they had concluded that Russia or its proxies were responsible for hacking political party organizations in the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election. On Thursday, lawmakers accused Russia of being responsible.

Various explanations have been floated by officials in Washington as to how the tools were stolen. Some feared it was the work of a leaker similar to former agency contractor Edward Snowden, while others suspected the Russians might have hacked into NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

But officials heading the FBI-led investigation now discount both of those scenarios, the people said in separate interviews.

NSA officials have told investigators that an employee or contractor made the mistake about three years ago during an operation that used the tools, the people said.

That person acknowledged the error shortly afterward, they said. But the NSA did not inform the companies of the danger when it first discovered the exposure of the tools, the sources said. Since the public release of the tools, the companies involved have issued patches in the systems to protect them.

Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the former NSA person, who has since departed the agency for other reasons, left the tools exposed deliberately. Another possibility, two of the sources said, is that more than one person at the headquarters or a remote location made similar mistakes or compounded each other’s missteps.

Representatives of the NSA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the office of the Director of National Intelligence all declined to comment.

After the discovery, the NSA tuned its sensors to detect use of any of the tools by other parties, especially foreign adversaries with strong cyber espionage operations, such as China and Russia.

That could have helped identify rival powers’ hacking targets, potentially leading them to be defended better. It might also have allowed U.S officials to see deeper into rival hacking operations while enabling the NSA itself to continue using the tools for its own operations.

Because the sensors did not detect foreign spies or criminals using the tools on U.S. or allied targets, the NSA did not feel obligated to immediately warn the U.S. manufacturers, an official and one other person familiar with the matter said.

In this case, as in more commonplace discoveries of security flaws, U.S. officials weigh what intelligence they could gather by keeping the flaws secret against the risk to U.S. companies and individuals if adversaries find the same flaws.

Critics of the Obama administration’s policies for making those decisions have cited the Shadow Brokers dump as evidence that the balance has tipped too far toward intelligence gathering.

The investigators have not determined conclusively that the Shadow Brokers group is affiliated with the Russian government, but that is the presumption, said one of the people familiar with the probe and a fifth person.

One reason for suspecting government instead of criminal involvement, officials said, is that the hackers revealed the NSA tools rather than immediately selling them.

The publication of the code, on the heels of leaks of emails by Democratic Party officials and preceding leaks of emails by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, could be part of a pattern of spreading harmful and occasionally false information to further the Russian agenda, said Jim Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The dumping is a tactic they’ve been developing for the last five years or so,” Lewis said. “They try it, and if we don’t respond they go a little further next time.”

(Reporting by Joseph Menn in San Francisco and John Walcott in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Grant McCool)

Putin, Assad ignore U.S. ; Aleppo hit by worst strikes for months

Damaged aid trucks are pictured after an airstrike on the rebel held Urm al-Kubra town, western Aleppo city, Syria S

By Tom Perry and Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Warplanes mounted the heaviest air strikes in months against rebel-held districts of the city of Aleppo overnight, as Russia and the Syrian government spurned a U.S. plea to halt flights, burying any hope for the revival of a doomed ceasefire.

Rebel officials and rescue workers said incendiary bombs were among the weapons that rained from the sky on the city. Hamza al-Khatib, the director of a hospital in the rebel-held east, told Reuters the death toll was 45.

“It’s as if the planes are trying to compensate for all the days they didn’t drop bombs” during the ceasefire, Ammar al-Selmo, the head of the civil defense rescue service in opposition-held eastern Aleppo told Reuters.

“It was like there was coordination between the planes and the artillery shelling, because the shells were hitting the same locations that the planes hit,” he said.

The assault, by aircraft from the Syrian government, its Russian allies or both, made clear that Moscow and Damascus had rejected a plea by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to halt flights so that aid could be delivered and a ceasefire salvaged.

In a tense televised exchange with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the United Nations on Wednesday, Kerry said stopping the bombardment was the last chance to find a way “out of the carnage”.

President Bashar al-Assad meanwhile indicated he saw no quick end to the war, telling AP News it would “drag on” as long as it is part of a global conflict in which terrorists were backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the United States.

Moscow and Washington announced the ceasefire two weeks ago with great fanfare. But the agreement, probably the final bid for a breakthrough on Syria before President Barack Obama leaves office next year, appears to have suffered the same ill fate as all previous peace efforts in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians and made half the nation homeless.

The truce foundered on Monday with an attack on an aid convoy, which Washington blamed on Russian warplanes. Russia denied involvement. Prior to that, tensions between Washington and Moscow spiked over a lethal air raid on Syrian government troops by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

Washington says it struck Syrian forces by mistake on Sept 17. Assad said in his interview he believed the strikes, which he said lasted over an hour, were deliberate.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military or mention on state media of Thursday’s bombardment of Aleppo.

“It was the heaviest air strikes for months inside Aleppo city,” said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the conflict from Britain.

A senior official in the Levant Front, an Aleppo-based rebel group, told Reuters: “The Russians only want surrender. They have no other solution.”

In another sign of the Syrian government’s determination to seize and hold more territory, it pressed on with the evacuation of rebel fighters from the last opposition-held district of Homs, which would complete the government’s recapture of the central city, now largely reduced to ruins.

U.N. RESUMES AID DELIVERIES

Assad, helped by Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, has steadily tightened his grip on the opposition-held eastern areas of Aleppo this year, achieving a long-held goal of fully encircling it this summer.

Capturing the rebel-held half of Syria’s largest city would be the biggest victory of the war for the government side, which has already achieved its strongest position in years thanks to Russian and Iranian support.

The United Nations announced that it was resuming aid deliveries to rebel-held areas on Thursday following a 48-hour suspension to review security guarantees after Monday’s attack on an aid convoy near Aleppo that killed around 20 people.

“We are sending today an inter-agency convoy that will cross conflict lines into a besieged area of rural Damascus,” Jens Laerke, spokesman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told Reuters.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for a temporary halt to all military flights: “If the ceasefire is to stand any chance, the only path is a temporary, but complete ban of all military aircraft movement in Syria – for at least three days, better would be seven days,” Steinmeier said.

HOMS EVACUATION

But the president of Iran on Wednesday dismissed that idea, saying it would help Islamic State and the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, which changed its name in July and says it cut its ties to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.

Assad has appeared as uncompromising as ever in recent weeks, reiterating his goal of taking back the whole country on the day the U.S.-Russian brokered truce took effect.

The government’s main focus has been to consolidate its grip over the main cities of western Syria and the coastal region that is the ancestral homeland of Assad’s Alawite sect.

On Thursday, around 120 rebel fighters and their families were evacuated from the last opposition-held district of Homs under an agreement with the government by which they were given safe passage to nearby rebel-held areas.

The opposition says such agreements are part of a government strategy to forcibly displace populations from opposition-held areas after years of siege and bombardment.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates several thousand rebel fighters remain in the al-Waer district.

The fighters, carrying their personal weapons, and their families will head from the al-Waer neighborhood to the rebel-held northern Homs countryside, then travel on to rebel-held Idlib province, Homs Governor Talal Barazi said.

Diplomats were due to convene later on Thursday in New York as part of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG). A senior U.N. official held out hope that the truce could be reestablished.

“Clearly, the resumption of the talks would be greatly helped by revitalizing the cessation of hostilities, and I think that is a possibility,” U.N. Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told reporters in Geneva.

“That is the objective of the meeting of the ISSG.”

(Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington and Angus McDowall in Beirut, Marwan Makdesi in Homs, Michael Nienaber in Berlin, and Stephanie Nebehay, Marina Depetris and Tom Miles in Geneva; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Peter Graff)

Jets pound Aleppo’s rebel-held areas, defying U.S.

damaged site in Aleppo after air strike

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Warplanes mounted the heaviest air strikes in months against rebel-held districts of the city of Aleppo overnight, rebel officials and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military on the reports, or mention of Aleppo air strikes on state media.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry demanded on Wednesday that Russia and the Syrian government immediately halt flights over Syrian battle zones, in what he called a last chance to salvage a collapsing ceasefire and find a way “out of the carnage”.

“It was the heaviest air strikes for months inside Aleppo city. It was very intense. In that area we didn’t see heavy fighting recently,” said Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman.

Zakaria Malahifji, head of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim rebel faction’s political office, said it was the most intense bombardment since April. “There is no weapon they didn’t use,” he said, speaking to Reuters from Turkey.

A senior official in the Levant Front, another Aleppo-based rebel group, also said it was the most intense bombardment in many months. There were 15 raids alone targeting two areas where his group had a presence, he added.

The rebel officials said weapons used included incendiary bombs. “This is a type of pressure on the opposition. The Russians only want surrender. They have no other solution,” the Levant Front official said.

Much of the recent fighting in the Aleppo area has been in a district of military colleges and industrial sites on its southwestern outskirts, rather than inside the city itself.

(Reporting by Tom Perry and Angus McDowall; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Larry King and Pravin Char)

Fighting further buries hopes for Syria truce

A man carries an injured child after airstrikes on the rebel held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria September 21, 2016.

By Tom Perry and John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels and pro-government forces battled each other on major frontlines near Aleppo and Hama, and air strikes reportedly killed a dozen people including four medical workers, as a ceasefire appeared to have completely unraveled.

The renewed battles demonstrated the thin prospects for reviving a truce that collapsed into fresh fighting and bombardments on Monday, including an attack on an aid convoy which U.S. officials believe was carried out by Russian jets. Moscow denies involvement.

The U.N. Security Council was due to hold a high-level meeting on Syria later on Wednesday.

Despite accusing Moscow of being behind the bombing of the aid convoy, the United States says the ceasefire agreement it sponsored jointly with Russia is “not dead”.

But the deal, probably the final hope of reaching a settlement on Syria before the administration of President Barack Obama leaves office, is following the path of all previous peace efforts in Syria: still being touted by diplomats long after the warring parties appeared to have abandoned it.

Overnight fighting was focused in areas that control access to Aleppo city, where the rebel-held east has been encircled by government forces, aided by Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, for all but a few weeks since July.

Syrian state media and a TV station controlled by its Lebanese ally Hezbollah said the army had recaptured a fertilizer factory in the Ramousah area to the southwest of the city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring body, confirmed the advance and said government forces had pressed forward near an apartment complex nearby.

A rebel fighter in the Aleppo area said warplanes had been bombing all night in preparation for an attack. But “the regime’s attempts to advance failed,” said the rebel, speaking to Reuters from the Aleppo area via the internet.

A Syrian military source said insurgent groups were mobilizing to the south and west of Aleppo, and in the northern Hama area. “We will certainly target all these gatherings and mobilizations they are conducting.”

The army reported carrying out air strikes on seven areas near Aleppo. The Observatory said an air strike killed four medical workers and at least nine rebel fighters in the insurgent-held town of Khan Touman south of Aleppo, saying the rebels were part of the Islamist alliance Jaish al-Fatah.

The medical staff killed were working for the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), it said. UOSSM confirmed in a statement that at least four of its staff had been killed.

Syrian government forces also launched a major advance in Hama province in the West of the country.

“It is a very intense attack, for which Russian jets paved the way, but it was repelled by the brothers, praise God,” Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a rebel commander fighting as part of the Islamist Jaish al-Fatah alliance, told Reuters.

He said rebels had destroyed four tanks and inflicted heavy losses on government troops. Syrian state TV said government forces had killed a number of insurgents and destroyed their vehicles.

Rebel sources also reported an attempt by pro-government forces to advance in the Handarat area to the north of Aleppo, saying this too had been repelled. Pro-government media made no mention of that attack.

The Observatory reported that a Syrian jet had crashed near Damascus, saying the cause of the crash and fate of the pilot were unknown. Islamic State said it had been shot down.

People inspect a damaged site after airstrikes on the rebel held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria September 21, 2016.

People inspect a damaged site after airstrikes on the rebel held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria September 21, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

“BAR OF DEPRAVITY”

The truce brokered by the United States and Russia took effect on Sept. 12 as part of a deal meant to facilitate aid access to besieged areas.

Foreign ministers of 20 countries including the United States and Russia met to discuss it on Tuesday and gave the agreement their support. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said after the meeting: “The ceasefire is not dead”.

In the pact, the details of which remain secret, Washington and Moscow, which back opposing sides in the war between President Bashar al-Assad’s government and insurgents, agreed to jointly target jihadists that are their common enemy.

But such unprecedented cooperation, at a time when trust between the Cold War-era foes is at its lowest for decades, was always a risky gamble. Kerry agreed the deal despite scepticism among other senior U.S. administration figures, and has acknowledged that it is fragile and uncertain.

Tensions between the United States and Russia escalated over a Sept. 17 attack by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers in the eastern Deir al-Zor province. Washington said that strike was carried out by mistake with the intent of hitting Islamic State.

Monday’s attack on the aid convoy, which the Syrian Red Crescent says killed the head of its local office and around 20 other people, brought furious international condemnation.

The United Nations suspended aid shipments. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon used his farewell speech to the General Assembly in New York to denounce the “cowards” behind it.

“Just when you think it cannot get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower,” Ban said.

However, the United Nations, which initially described the attack as an air strike, rowed back from that characterization, saying it could not be certain what had happened.

Two U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday that two Russian Sukhoi SU-24 warplanes were in the skies above the aid convoy at the time it was struck late on Monday, citing U.S. intelligence that led them to conclude Russia was to blame.

Moscow says the convoy was not hit from the air and has implied rebels were to blame, saying only rescue workers affiliated to the opposition knew what had happened. Russia’s foreign ministry told reporters at the United Nations the U.S. administration “has no facts” to support its assertions.

Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, has been a focal point of the war this year as Assad and his allies have sought to encircle the insurgent-held east and cut opposition supply lines to Turkey.

Having blockaded eastern Aleppo, the government and its allies aim to clear insurgents from areas to the south and west, to take back territory including the main Damascus-Aleppo highway. Shi’ite militia from Iraq, Lebanon and Iran play a big role fighting on the government’s side.

But rebel groups still have a strong presence in the area which abuts the insurgent stronghold of Idlib province. The powerful group formerly known as the Nusra Front has played a big role in fighting against the government.

Long al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, Nusra has changed its name and disavowed al Qaeda, but is still characterized by both the West and Moscow as a terrorist group excluded from the ceasefire. Other rebels say Russia and the Syrian government exploit this to justify broader attacks.

(Writing by Tom Perry; editing by Peter Graff)

Phantom voters, smuggled ballots hint at foul play in Russian vote

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the United Russia party's campaign headquarters following a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia,

By Olga Sichkar, Jack Stubbs and Gleb Stolyarov

UFA/SARANSK Russia (Reuters) – Voters across Russia handed a sweeping victory to President Vladimir Putin’s allies in a parliamentary election on Sunday. But in two regions Reuters reporters saw inflated turnout figures, ballot-stuffing and people voting more than once at three polling stations.

In the Bashkortostan region’s capital Ufa, in the foothills of the Urals, Reuters reporters counted 799 voters casting ballots at polling station number 284. When officials tallied the vote later in the day, they said the turnout was 1,689.

At polling station 591 in the Mordovia regional capital of Saransk, about 650 km south-east of Moscow, reporters counted 1,172 voters but officials recorded a turnout of 1,756.

A Reuters reporter obtained a temporary registration to vote at that station, and cast a ballot for a party other than the pro-Putin United Russia. During the count, officials recorded that not a single vote had been cast for that party.

Election officials at the stations denied there were violations or count irregularities.

It is unlikely that any irregularities at these polling stations would have been on a scale that could have affected the result.

The incidents are only a narrow snapshot of what was happening across Russia’s 11 time zones and thousands of polling stations on an election day that was a test of whether support for Putin and his allies had held up despite a recession and Western sanctions. Reuters was unable to assess independently if such practices were widespread.

Reuters sent reporters to a random sample of 11 polling stations across central and western Russia on polling day, including in and around Moscow.

At three of them, there were large discrepancies between the number of voters Reuters reporters counted, and the number that officials recorded. At four of the other eight, there were also some irregularities, including smaller discrepancies in the voter tallies and people saying they had been paid or pressured to vote.

Ella Pamfilova, chairwoman of Russia’s Central Election Commission, told news briefings that the vote had been more transparent than the previous election, citing the use of live webcams in some polling stations.

She said the webcams had shown some cases of vote-rigging, and that they would be investigated. But she said no one had brought the commission concrete evidence of large-scale fraud.

After the last parliamentary election in 2011, which was also won comfortably by the pro-Putin United Russia party, allegations from opposition activists of widespread electoral fraud prompted large protests in the capital Moscow.

The Central Election Commission did not respond when asked by Reuters to comment on the incidents seen by reporters. Requests for comment sent to the regional election commissions for Bashkortostan and Mordovia also received no replies.

Sunday’s election was “far from anything that could be called free and fair”, Golos, a non-governmental organization that monitors Russian elections, said in a statement. “The results … of the monitoring show the practice of using illegal techniques continues.”

It said its conclusions were based on information collected by observers it posted to polling stations in 40 out of more than 80 Russian regions. It said violations reported by the observers included ballot-stuffing and people voting more than once.

VOTING TWICE

Putin, a leader many Russians credit with standing up to the West and restoring national pride, cemented his supremacy over the country’s political system when the ruling United Russia party took three-quarters of the seats in parliament, paving the way for him to run for a fourth term as president.

Latest official results from the election put the party he founded 16 years ago on 54.2 percent of the vote, with the closest runners-up far behind. Turnout was 47 percent, much lower than the last parliamentary vote.

Election officials collate two sets of turnout figures – one that includes only people who showed up at a polling station in person to vote, and a second, larger figure, that also includes votes cast at home by disabled voters. In order to make a direct comparison, Reuters compared its own count of voters with the first official figure, for people who voted in person.

On polling day, Reuters reporters operated in teams, with at least one person staying inside each station from the start of voting until the end of the count.

In Mordovia’s capital Saransk, a man dressed in a sports jacket and dark blue trousers came into polling station 591 to cast his vote, then came back again 20 minutes later and was seen once again putting his vote into the ballot box.

Asked why he came back a second time, he had no clear explanation, saying only that his wife had his keys so he could not get into his home.

Election officials at the polling station declined to explain why people were allowed to vote twice.

A woman with dyed orange hair, and a blonde man with a beard, turned up together at polling station number 424 in the village of Atemar in Mordovia, and a Reuters reporter saw each of them vote.

An hour later, they were back, and joined the queue to vote again. Asked to explain why, the woman said she was accompanying her husband who had not voted. Election officials issued the husband with another ballot paper before telling the reporter to move away from the ballot boxes.

In Atemar, reporters counted 669 voters at polling station number 424 while officials counted 1,261.

The station’s chief election official, Svetlana Baulina, brought in about 10 ballot papers wrapped up in a red raincoat, and mixed them up with other ballots being counted on a table.

Baulina declined to comment when asked why she had carried in ballots in a coat.

‘NO VIOLATIONS’

At all three locations where Reuters found large discrepancies in turnout figures, United Russia was the overwhelming winner in the official count.

In Saransk, when asked about the gap between the turnout counted by Reuters reporters and the official figure at station 591, local election chief Irina Fedoseyeva said: “You’re also human, you can make mistakes too.”

When asked about why the reporter’s vote for a party other than United Russia did not register in the official count, she said the reporter could recount the vote himself if he didn’t believe the result.

“If this is how things have turned out, then that’s how it’s turned out,” she said.

Election official Baulina at Atemar’s polling station 424 said of the discrepancy there: “We don’t know how you counted. Might the button (of a count clicker) get stuck?”

At station number 284 in Bashkortostan’s Ufa, election chief Fairuza Akhmetziyanova said: “We had no violations.”

Officials at polling station number 285 in Bashkortostan refused to let a Reuters reporter in, citing the need to obtain permission from local authorities. There is no such requirement for international media under Russian election rules.

During the count at polling station number 591 in Saransk, election officials drew a line on the floor in chalk and told a Reuters reporter not to cross it.

In the Bashkortostan village of Knyazevo, officials at polling station 62 ruled that the Reuters reporter should be removed after concerns were raised with them about the reporter’s mechanical counter by a voter identified as A.Z. Minsafin in a document drafted by the officials.

That voter said the reporter was making “strange manipulations” with an object which “could testify to the presence of an object of radioactive nature, which is a threat to health and life”, according to the document.

The ruling to remove the reporter was not enforced.

(Reporting by Svetlana Burmistrova in Bashkortostan, Vladimir Soldatkin and Alexander Winning in Mordovia, Andrei Kuzmin, Kira Zavyalova, Denis Pinchuk in Velikiye Luki, Anton Zverev, Darya Korsunskaya and Anastasiya Lyrchikova in Aleksin, Zlata Garasyuta, Anastasia Teterevleva, Natalya Shurmina and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; Writing by Maria Tsvetkova and Christian Lowe; Editing by Pravin Char)

U.N. suspends aid after convoy attack as Syria ceasefire collapses

Damaged Red Cross and Red Crescent medical supplies lie inside a warehouse after an airstrike on the rebel held Urm al-Kubra town, western Aleppo city, Syria

By Stephanie Nebehay and Lisa Barrington

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The United Nations suspended all aid shipments into Syria on Tuesday after a deadly attack on a convoy carrying humanitarian supplies, as a week-old U.S.-Russian sponsored ceasefire collapsed in renewed violence.

Washington said it was “outraged” by the apparent air strike that hit a 31-truck aid convoy late on Monday.

Russia, which is allied to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, denied that either its air force or that of the Syrian armed forces were responsible. The Syrian army also denied blame.

Moscow said only insurgents knew the full whereabouts of the convoy, but this contradicted the United Nations, which said all parties had been notified and the trucks were clearly marked.

The Syrian Red Crescent said the head of one of its local offices and “around 20 civilians” were killed.

The strike on the aid convoy appeared to deliver a death blow to the ceasefire, the latest failed attempt to halt a war, now in its sixth year, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

Syria’s army declared the ceasefire over on Monday, hours before the strike. While the United States initially said it was still hopeful of extending the truce, U.S. officials acknowledged in the wake of the attack that there might no longer be any agreement left to salvage.

That would most likely wreck the last hope of any breakthrough on Syria before the administration of President Barack Obama leaves office in January, meaning his successor will inherit a war that has split the Middle East on sectarian lines and drawn in global and regional powers.

The ceasefire was meant to halt all fighting and allow aid to reach besieged areas, at a time when pro-government forces, with Russian and Iranian military support, are in their strongest positions for years and civilians in many rebel-held are completely cut off from food and medical supplies.

“As an immediate security measure, other convoy movements in Syria have been suspended for the time being pending further assessment of the security situation,” Jens Laercke, a U.N. humanitarian aid spokesman, told a briefing.

“WAR CRIME IF DELIBERATE”

The attack on the convoy of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent destroyed 18 of 31 trucks.

“If this callous attack is found to be a deliberate targeting of humanitarians, it would amount to a war crime,” U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien said in a statement. Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called it a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.

While there were contradictory reports of the full death toll, one of those killed was the head of the Syrian Red Crescent for the area, Omar Barakat. The team on the ground was “in shock,” said ICRC’s Middle East chief, Robert Mardini.

The United Nations had only just received permission from the Syrian government to deliver aid to all besieged areas in the country, and had notified Washington and Moscow of the convoy’s route.

A local resident told Reuters by telephone that the trucks were hit by about five missile strikes while parked in a center belonging to the Syrian Red Crescent in Urem al-Kubra, a town near Aleppo.

WASHINGTON “OUTRAGED”

At the time of the strike, U.S. and Russian officials had been meeting behind closed doors in Geneva to discuss extending the ceasefire, although Syria’s army had already declared the truce over and announced it would resume fighting.

Washington was “outraged”, said U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby. “The destination of this convoy was known to the Syrian regime and the Russian federation and yet these aid workers were killed in their attempt to provide relief to the Syrian people,” he said in a statement.

Kirby said Washington would raise the issue with Moscow and reassess the future of its cooperation with Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was unlikely the ceasefire could be salvaged, and blamed Washington for failing to fulfill its obligation to separate jihadist fighters from insurgent groups covered by the truce.

A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, said the Russian and Syrian air forces were not involved, and appeared to blame the insurgents: “All information on the whereabouts of the convoy was available only to the militants controlling these areas.”

Syria’s state news agency SANA quoted a source in the army as saying: “There is no truth to reports carried by some media outlets that the Syrian Arab Army targeted a humanitarian aid convoy in the Aleppo countryside.”

DIPLOMATIC GAMBLE

After five years of fighting that made a mockery of all peacekeeping efforts, the ceasefire deal was a gamble on unprecedented cooperation between the United States and Russia. Trust between the two Cold War-era foes is at its lowest point for decades.

The deal called for Washington and Moscow, which support opposite sides in the war between Assad’s government and insurgents but are both fighting against Islamic State militants, to eventually share targeting information, the first time they would have fought openly together since World War Two.

It was negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry during months of intensive diplomacy, despite scepticism from other senior officials in the Obama administration.

Following the attack, a senior Obama administration official said of the ceasefire: “We don’t know if it can be salvaged.”

“At this point the Russians have to demonstrate very quickly their seriousness of purpose because otherwise there will be nothing to extend and nothing to salvage,” the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, added.

Kerry, in New York for a U.N. summit, said the future of the agreement would depend on Moscow.

“The Russians made the agreement. So we need to see what the Russians say,” he said. “But the point – the important thing is the Russians need to control Assad, who evidently is indiscriminately bombing, including of humanitarian convoys.”

The air strikes appeared particularly heavy in insurgent-held areas west of Aleppo, near the rebel stronghold of Idlib province. And in eastern Aleppo, a resident reached by Reuters late on Monday said there had been dozens of blasts.

“It started with an hour of extremely fierce bombing,” said Besher Hawi, the former spokesman for the opposition’s Aleppo city council. “Now I can hear the sound of helicopters overhead. The last two were barrel bombs,” he said, the sound of an explosion audible in the background.

(Writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership)