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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. 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, 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)

Turkey’s Erdogan accuses U.S. of sending weapons to Kurdish fighters

urkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses the United Nations General Assembly in the Manhattan borough of New York

By Daren Butler and David Dolan

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States of supplying more weapons to Kurdish fighters in northern Syria this week, saying Washington had delivered two plane loads of arms to what Ankara considers a terrorist group.

Erdogan’s comments are likely to add to the tension between Turkey and the United States over Syria, where Washington backs the Kurdish YPG forces against Islamic State.

Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State but views the Syrian Kurdish YPG and its PYD political wing as an extension of Kurdish militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency on its own soil.

“If you think you can finish off Daesh with the YPG and PYD, you cannot, because they are terrorist groups too,” Erdogan said in comments in New York on Thursday that were broadcast on Turkish television. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

“Three days ago America dropped two plane loads of weapons in Kobani for these terror groups,” he said, adding he had raised the issue on Wednesday with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden who he said had no knowledge of this.

The United States, which sees the YPG as a major strategic partner in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, air-dropped weapons to the group in the largely Kurdish town of Kobani in 2014. Erdogan said that half of those arms were seized by Islamic State fighters.

Kobani was besieged by Islamic State for four months in late 2014 and is about 35 km (20 miles) east of the Syrian border town of Jarablus, which Turkish-backed rebels seized a month ago in an operation dubbed “Euphrates Shield”.

That operation is designed to clear Islamic State fighters from Turkey’s southern border area but it has also brought Turkish and Syrian rebel forces into conflict with the YPG.

FOCUS ON ASSAD

Much of Turkey’s focus during the six-year Syria civil war has been on the need to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rather than fighting Islamic State. Its recent push into northern Syria came after steady advances by the YPG.

Erdogan, who was on a visit to the United States this week, told broadcaster MSNBC that the blame for a deadly attack on a United Nations convoy rested squarely with Damascus.

“The killer responsible for that attack is Assad’s regime itself,” he said, through a translator in an interview aired on Friday.

He called again for the creation of a “safe zone” in northern Syria, an idea that has failed to gain traction with Western allies, who say it would require a significant ground force and planes to patrol.

The top U.S. general on Thursday said the military was considering arming the Syrian Kurdish fighters, and acknowledged the difficulty of balancing such a move with the relationship with Ankara.

“We are in deliberation about (what) exactly to do with the Syrian Democratic Forces right now,” General Joseph Dunford told a Senate hearing, referring to a U.S.-backed coalition that includes the YPG.

When asked whether he agreed that arming the Syrian Kurds fighters presented a military opportunity for the United States to be more effective in Syria, Dunford said: “I would agree with that. If we would reinforce the Syrian Democratic Forces’ current capabilities that will increase the prospects of our success in Raqqa.”

Raqqa is Islamic State’s stronghold in Syria.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Tuvan Gumrucku in Ankara; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

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)

Texas withdrawing from U.S. refugee resettle program

Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks at a campaign rally for U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz in Dallas, Texas

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept 21 (Reuters) – Texas gave notice on Wednesday that it was withdrawing from participating in the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement’s program, citing security concerns after failing in federal court to halt the inflow of
Syrian refugees into the state.

The Texas State Refugee Coordinator sent a letter to the agency, giving 120 days notice of its intention to withdraw, charging the program was riddled with problems that present security risks, Republican Governor Greg Abbott said.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement said in a statement its services to help integrate newcomers into U.S. society are only provided after they complete stringent U.S. security screenings.

“Despite multiple requests by the State of Texas, the federal government lacks the capability or the will to distinguish the dangerous from the harmless, and Texas will not be an accomplice to such dereliction of duty to the American people,” Abbott said in a statement.

Texas, a bellwether state for conservative policies, has seen other Republican-led states follow its lead in challenging the Obama administration’s refugee resettlement plans in and out of the courts.

“The security vetting for this population – the most vulnerable of individuals – is extraordinarily thorough and comprehensive,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a joint, five-page letter to Abbott in November which outlined the process.

Since Jan. 1, 2011, there have been 1,104 Syrian refugees resettled in Texas, according to the U.S. State Department-affiliated Refugee Processing Center. That is less than the 1,610 people resettled in California and the 1,515 sent
to Michigan.

A Texas withdraw is not expected to impair the work of private relief groups from resettling refugees in the state.

The Obama administration said on Aug. 29 it would meet its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees during the current fiscal year a month ahead of schedule and was working with Congress to increase the target by a few thousand during 2017.

U.S. admission of Syrian refugees has been a hot button issue in the 2016 presidential race.

The civil war in Syria has led to a flood of refugees. The United States has offered refuge to far fewer than many of its allies. Germany has taken in over a million refugees from Syria, North Africa and Asia in the last year, while Canada admitted nearly 30,000 between November last year and May 1.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Daniel Bases)

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

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. 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)

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)

Aid trucks hit by air strikes as Syria says ceasefire

Children walk near damaged buildings in rebel-held Ain Tarma, eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria September 17, 2016

By Tom Perry and John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Air raids hit aid trucks near the city of Aleppo on Monday, a monitoring group reported, as the Syrian military declared that a week-long ceasefire was over.

The attacks were carried out by either Syrian or Russian aircraft, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that there had been 35 strikes in and around Aleppo since the truce ended.

The Observatory said the aid trucks had made a delivery organized by an international organization to an area west of Aleppo. The United Nations and Red Cross said they were investigating the reports.

A local resident told Reuters by phone that the trucks were hit by around five missile strikes while parked in a center belonging to the Syrian Red Crescent in the town of Urm al-Kubra, near Aleppo. The head of the center and several others were badly injured.

The monitoring group said it was not clear if the jets were Syrian or Russian. Moscow supports President Bashar al-Assad with its air force. The Syrian military could not immediately be reached for comment.

Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a rebel commander, said the most intense bombardments had taken in place in areas west of Aleppo, the same area where the aid convoy was hit. “The regime and Russians are taking revenge on all the areas,” he said.

The raids came as what is likely to be the final attempt by the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama to find a negotiated solution to the five year old civil war appeared close to collapse.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said it was too early to call the ceasefire finished, and the United Nations said that only Washington and Moscow could declare it over, as they were the ones who had originally agreed it.

Washington said it was working to extend the truce but called on Russia to first clarify the Syrian army’s statement that it was over.

Russian and U.S. officials met in Geneva on Monday to try to extend the truce, and the International Syria Support Group – the countries backing the Syria peace process – was scheduled to meet on Tuesday in New York to assess the agreement.

But both the Syrian army and the rebels spoke of returning to the battlefield.

Syria’s army said the seven day truce period had ended. It accused “terrorist groups”, a term the government uses for all insurgents, of exploiting the calm to rearm while violating the ceasefire 300 times, and vowed to “continue fulfilling its national duties in fighting terrorism in order to bring back security and stability”.

Asked about the army’s statement, Kerry told reporters in New York that the seven days of calm and aid deliveries envisaged in the truce had not yet taken place.

“It would be good if they didn’t talk first to the press but if they talked to the people who are actually negotiating this,” Kerry said. “We just began today to see real movement of humanitarian goods, and let’s see where we are. We’re happy to have a conversation with them.”

Aid was delivered to the besieged town of Talbiseh in Homs province on Monday, the Red Cross said, for the first time since July. The convoy brought in food, water and hygiene supplies for up to 84,000 people, it said.

But most aid shipments envisioned under the truce have yet to go in, especially a convoy destined for rebel-held eastern parts of Aleppo, where some 275,000 civilians are believed trapped without access to food or medical supplies.

“I am pained and disappointed that a United Nations convoy has yet to cross into Syria from Turkey, and safely reach eastern Aleppo,” the U.N. Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien said in a statement.

The United Nations said it had received government approval to reach nearly all the besieged and hard-to-reach areas where it sought to bring aid, but access to many areas was still constrained by fighting, insecurity and administrative delays.

Already widely violated since it took effect, the ceasefire came under added strain at the weekend when Russia said jets from the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in eastern Syria.

Assad called that incident “flagrant aggression”. Washington has called it a mistake.

KERRY’S GAMBLE

The ceasefire is the second negotiated by Washington and Moscow since Russia joined the war. But while it led to a significant reduction in fighting at the outset, violence has increased in recent days and aid has mostly failed to arrive.

Plans to evacuate several hundred rebels from the last opposition-held district of Homs city have also overshadowed the agreement, with rebels saying it would amount to the government declaring the ceasefire over. The Homs governor said the plan had been postponed from Monday to Tuesday.

An end to the truce could doom any chance of the Obama administration negotiating a Syria breakthrough before it leaves office in January. Kerry overcame scepticism of other administration officials to hammer out the deal, gambling on cooperation with Russia despite the deepest mistrust in decades between the Cold War-era superpower foes.

Washington and Moscow back opposite sides in the war between Assad’s government and the insurgents, while both oppose the Islamic State jihadist group. Russia joined the war a year ago on Assad’s side, tipping it firmly in his favor.

The politburo chief of one prominent Aleppo rebel group, Fastaqim, said the agreement had “practically failed and has ended”, adding that it remained to be seen if anything could be done “in theory” to save it.

Zakaria Malahifji, speaking to Reuters from the Turkish city of Gaziantep, also indicated rebel groups were preparing for combat: “I imagine in the near future there will be action by the factions”.

Monitors reported clashes in and around Aleppo on Monday. The government blamed some of the violence on what it said was an insurgent assault, but another rebel official denied they had yet launched new attacks.

The opposition High Negotiations Committee spokesman Riad Nassan Agha said the government side had never committed to the truce: “Air raids by Russian and Syrian warplanes, which haven’t stopped, suggest the truce never started in the first place.”

(Additional reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard in Copenhagen, John Davison, Lisa Barrington and Ellen Francis in Beirut, Lesley Wroughton in New York, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

London ‘lifejacket graveyard’ aims to send message to U.N. Summit

LONDON (Reuters) – Aid organizations laid out 2,500 lifejackets symbolizing refugee crossings to Europe in a demonstration outside the British parliament on Monday timed to coincide with a United Nations summit on the worldwide migrant crisis.

The orange lifejackets spread out on the lawn of Parliament Square were worn by adults and children traveling from Turkey to Greece, part of a wave of migrants attempting the Mediterranean crossing to get to mainland Europe.

The United Nations refugee body UNHCR, International Rescue Committee, Migrant Voice, World Vision, and Médecins Sans Frontières collaborated for the display, which they called a “lifejacket graveyard” to illustrate the risks migrants take.

The UNHCR estimates 6,940 people drowned or went missing while trying to reach Europe between January 2015 and August 2016.

A display of lifejackets worn by refugees during their crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Chois, are seen Parliament Square in central London, Britain September 19, 2016. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

“We hope this will send a message to the world leaders to call for durable solutions,” said Sanj Srikanthan, head of policy and practice at International Rescue Committee.

In New York, leaders of 193 states were gathering for the United Nations General Assembly, which was opening with its first ever summit specifically addressing global movements of refugees and migrants.

Aid organizations have often called on Britain to take more refugees but Prime Minister Theresa May was preparing to defend her country’s record.

She was expected to affirm the right of all countries to control their borders, a government statement said, and would call for “reducing unmanaged population movement” along with measures to help refugees claim asylum in the first safe countries they reach.

(Reporting by Helen Reid; editing by Stephen Addison)

Turkey backed rebels could push further south in Syria, Erdogan says

Free Syrian Army fighters launch a Grad rocket from Halfaya town in Hama province, towards forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad stationed in Zein al-Abidin mountain,

y Orhan Coskun and Seda Sezer

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey-backed rebels may extend their zone of control in northern Syria by pushing south and are now targeting the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.

Turkey’s “safety zone” in the region could eventually span an area of 5,000 square km (1,930 square miles), Erdogan told a news conference before departing for New York where he was due to address the United Nations’ General Assembly.

Ankara launched its operation in northern Syria known as “Euphrates Shield” last month, aiming to clear Islamic State from Turkey’s Syrian border area and to stop the advance of Syrian Kurdish fighters. So far, it has secured a thin wedge of land along its border.

“As part of the Euphrates Shield operation, an area of 900 square kilometers has been cleared of terror so far. This area is pushing south,” Erdogan said.

“We may extend this area to 5,000 square kilometers as part of a safe zone.”

Turkey has long argued for the need for a “safe zone” or a “no-fly” zone along its Syrian border, with the aim of clearing out Islamic State and Kurdish fighters and stemming a wave of migration that has fueled tensions in Europe.

But Western allies have so far balked at the idea, saying it would require a significant ground force and planes to patrol, marking a major commitment in such a crowded battlefield.

Erdogan said on Monday the Turkey-backed rebels – a group of Syrian Arabs and Turkmen fighting under the loose banner of the Free Syrian Army – were now focused on capturing the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab.

“Jarablus and al-Rai have been cleansed, now we are moving towards al-Bab… We will go there and stop (Islamic State) from being a threat to us,” he said.

CONTROL OF AL-BAB

Gaining control of al-Bab, which lies on the southern edge of what Ankara sees as its potential buffer zone, is crucial to Turkey’s plans to keep the Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters in check, analysts say.

Ankara’s challenge now is to turn the fractured Free Syrian Army into a coherent force as a counterweight to the YPG.

Turkey, a NATO member and part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State in Syria, regards the Washington-backed YPG as a terrorist group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Ankara worries that advances by the YPG will embolden insurgents in its largely Kurdish southeast.

Erdogan has frequently castigated the United States for its support of the YPG. On Monday he accused Washington of exacerbating tension in the region, referring to an incident last week when a small number of U.S. forces entered the town of al-Rai but were forced to withdraw after the Free Syrian Army rebels protested against their presence.

The U.S. special forces entered the town to coordinate air strikes against Islamic State.

“The Syrian army did not and does not want interference from U.S. special forces,” Erdogan said. “Unfortunately, the behavior of U.S. officials has pushed the FSA to this point,” he said, in what appeared to be a reference to Washington’s support of the YPG.

Separately, Turkey’s military said on Monday it hit Islamic State targets in northern Syria in air strikes a day earlier, targeting barracks and an ammunition store.

Erdogan said he plans to address the Syria crisis, the fight against terrorism and Turkey’s failed July 15 military coup when he addresses the U.N. General Assembly later this week.

(Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Gareth Jones)

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