Tag Archives: Aleppo

Aleppo could fall ‘at any moment’, U.N. reports civilian slaughter

Free Syrian Army fighters fire an anti-aircraft weapon in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, Syria.

By Laila Bassam and Stephanie Nebehay

ALEPPO, Syria/GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it had reports that Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters had summarily shot dead 82 children, women and men in recaptured east Aleppo and a military source said the last rebel pocket could fall “at any moment”.

The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and its main ally Russia said on Tuesday rebels had “kept over 100,000 people as human shields”.

The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo has sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity”.

Hopes for a last-ditch deal to end the fighting by withdrawing fighters also seemed in doubt, with Moscow rejecting calls for an immediate ceasefire as concern grew over the fate of civilians.

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. office. “There could be many more.”

France said it had called for an immediate U.N. Security Council meeting over the alleged atrocities to focus on possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.

Colville said the rebel-held area was “a hellish corner” of less than a square kilometer, adding its capture was imminent.

The Syrian army and its allies could declare victory at any moment, a Syrian military source said, predicting the final fall of the rebel enclave on Tuesday or Wednesday, after insurgent defences collapsed on Monday.

“WANTON SLAUGHTER”

Turkish and Russian officials will meet on Wednesday to examine a possible ceasefire and opening a corridor, a senior Turkish official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

But Moscow, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, rejected any immediate call for a ceasefire. “The Russian side wants to do that only when the corridors are established,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

A man carries a child with an IV drip as he flees deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria

A man carries a child with an IV drip as he flees deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

The spokesman for the civil defence force in the former rebel area of Aleppo reckoned rebels controlled an area of less than three sq km. “The situation is very, very bad. The civil defence has stopped operating in the city,” he told Reuters.

A surrender or withdrawal of the rebels from Aleppo would mean the end of the rebellion in the city, Syria’s largest until the outbreak of war after mass protests in 2011, but it is unclear if such a deal can be struck by world powers.

By finally dousing the last embers of resistance burning in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military coalition of the army, Russian air power and Iran-backed militias will have delivered him his biggest battlefield victory of the war.

However, while the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, will suffer a crushing defeat in Aleppo, the war will be far from over.

“The crushing of Aleppo, the immeasurably terrifying toll on its people, the bloodshed, the wanton slaughter of men, women and children, the destruction – and we are nowhere near the end of this cruel conflict,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a statement.

“FLEEING IN PANIC”

Aleppo’s loss will leave the rebels without a significant presence in any of Syria’s main cities, but they still hold much of the countryside west of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, also in northwest Syria.

Islamic State also has a big presence in Syria and has advanced in recent days, taking the desert city of Palmyra.

The army and its allies were advancing towards the Sukkari, Tel al-Zarazir and parts of Seif al-Dawla and al-Amariya districts, the Syrian military source said. “When the army regains control of these areas, its operation in the eastern areas of the city… will have finished”.

After days of intense bombardment of rebel-held areas, the rate of shelling and air strikes dropped considerably late on Monday and through the night as the weather deteriorated, a Reuters reporter in the city said.

However, rocket fire pounded rebel-held areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, reported. Rebels and government forces still fought at points around the reduced enclave, the Observatory said.

Smoke rises as seen from a government-held area of Aleppo, Syria

Smoke rises as seen from a government-held area of Aleppo, Syria December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF cited an unnamed doctor in Aleppo as saying that many unaccompanied children were trapped in a building that was under attack, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had no knowledge of the incident.

“Artillery shelling is continuing but because of the weather the aerial bombing has stopped. Many of the families and children have not left for areas under the control of the regime because their fathers are from the rebels,” said Abu Ibrahim, a resident of Aleppo in a text message.

Colville said he feared retribution. “In all, as of yesterday evening we have received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children,” Colville told a news briefing, naming the Iraqi armed group Harakat al-Nujaba as reportedly involved in the killings.

The military official said the rebels were fleeing “in a state of panic”, but a Turkish-based official with the Jabha Shamiya insurgent group in Aleppo said on Monday night that they had established a new frontline along the river.

“The bombardment is not on the frontlines, the greater burden of the bombardment is on the civilians, and this is what is causing a burden on us,” the official said.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents.

Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al-Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.

“Last night people slept in the streets and in buildings where every flat has several families crowded in,” he added.

Celebrations on the government side of the divided city lasted into Monday night, with fighters shooting rounds into the sky in triumph.

TIDE OF REFUGEES

A daily bulletin issued by the Russian Defence Ministry’s “reconciliation center” from the Hmeimin airbase used by its warplanes, reported that more than 8,000 civilians, more than half of them children, had left east Aleppo in 24 hours.

State television broadcast footage of a tide of hundreds of refugees walking along a ravaged street, wearing thick clothes against the rain and cold, many with hoods or hats pulled tight around their faces, and hauling sacks or bags of belongings.

One man pushed a bicycle loaded with bags, another family pulled a cart on which sat an elderly woman. Another man carried on his back a small girl wearing a pink hat.

At the same time, a correspondent from a pro-Damascus television station spoke to camera from a part of Aleppo held by the government, standing in a tidy street with flowing traffic.

In some recaptured areas, people were returning to their shattered homes. A woman in her sixties, who identified herself as Umm Ali, or “Ali’s mother”, said that she, her husband and her disabled daughter had no water.

They were looking after the orphaned children of another daughter killed in the bombing, she said, and were reduced to putting pots and pans in the street to collect rainwater.

In another building near al-Shaar district, which was taken by the army last week, a man was fixing the balcony of his house with his children. “No matter the circumstances, our home is better than displacement,” he said.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam in Aleppo, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Pravin Char and Peter Millership)

Thousands flee Aleppo onslaught as battle reaches climax

Aleppo family flees war zone

By Laila Bassam and Stephanie Nebehay

ALEPPO, Syria/GENEVA (Reuters) – Thousands of people fled the front lines of fighting in Aleppo on Tuesday as the Syrian military hammered the final pocket of rebel resistance and Russia rejected an immediate ceasefire.

The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity” with civilians being shot dead.

The U.N. human rights office said it had reports of abuses, including that the army and allied Iraqi militiamen summarily killed at least 82 civilians in captured districts of the city, once a flourishing economic center with renowned ancient sites.

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. office. “There could be many more.”

Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.

Colville said the rebel-held area was “a hellish corner” of less than a square kilometer, adding its capture was imminent.

The Syrian army and its allies are in the “last moments before declaring victory” in Aleppo, a Syrian military source said, after rebel defences collapsed, leaving insurgents in a tiny, heavily bombarded pocket of ground.

Turkish and Russian officials will meet on Wednesday to examine a possible ceasefire and opening a corridor, a senior Turkish official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

But Moscow, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, rejected any immediate call for a ceasefire. “The Russian side wants to do that only when the corridors are established,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

The spokesman for the civil defence force in the former rebel area of Aleppo said rebels now controlled an area of less than three sq km. “The situation is very, very bad. The civil defence has stopped operating in the city,” he told Reuters.

A surrender or withdrawal of the rebels from Aleppo would mean the end of the rebellion in the city, Syria’s largest until the outbreak of war after mass protests in 2011, but it is unclear if such a deal can be struck by world powers.

By finally dousing the last embers of resistance burning in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military coalition of the army, Russian air power and Iran-backed militias will have delivered him his biggest battlefield victory of the war.

However, while the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, will suffer a crushing defeat in Aleppo, the war will be far from over.

“FLEEING IN PANIC”

Aleppo’s loss will leave the rebels without a significant presence in any of Syria’s main cities, but they still hold much of the countryside west of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, also in northwest Syria.

Islamic State also has a big presence in Syria and has advanced in recent days, taking the desert city of Palmyra.

The army and its allies had taken full control over all the Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat in the city, a Syrian military source said on Tuesday.

After days of intense bombardment of rebel-held areas, the rate of shelling and air strikes dropped considerably late on Monday and through the night as the weather deteriorated, a Reuters reporter in the city said.

However, rocket fire pounded rebel-held areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, reported. Rebels and government forces still fought at points around the reduced enclave, the Observatory said.

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF cited an unnamed doctor in Aleppo as saying that many unaccompanied children were trapped in a building that was under attack, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had no knowledge of the incident.

“Artillery shelling is continuing but because of the weather the aerial bombing has stopped. Many of the families and children have not left for areas under the control of the regime because their fathers are from the rebels,” said Abu Ibrahim, a resident of Aleppo in a text message.

Colville said he feared retribution. “In all, as of yesterday evening we have received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children,” Colville told a news briefing, naming the Iraqi armed group Harakat al-Nujaba as reportedly involved in the killings.

The military official said the rebels were fleeing “in a state of panic”, but a Turkish-based official with the Jabha Shamiya insurgent group in Aleppo said on Monday night that they had established a new frontline along the river.

“The bombardment is not on the frontlines, the greater burden of the bombardment is on the civilians, and this is what is causing a burden on us,” the official said.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents.

Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.

“Last night people slept in the streets and in buildings where every flat has several families crowded in,” he added.

Celebrations on the government side of the divided city lasted into Monday night, with fighters shooting rounds into the sky in triumph.

TIDE OF REFUGEES

A daily bulletin issued by the Russian Defence Ministry’s “reconciliation center” from the Hmeimin airbase used by its warplanes, reported that more than 8,000 civilians, more than half of them children, had left east Aleppo in 24 hours.

State television broadcast footage of a tide of hundreds of refugees walking along a ravaged street, wearing thick clothes against the rain and cold, many with hoods or hats pulled tight around their faces, and hauling sacks or bags of belongings.

One man pushed a bicycle loaded with bags, another family pulled a cart on which sat an elderly woman. Another man carried on his back a small girl wearing a pink hat.

At the same time, a correspondent from a pro-Damascus television station spoke to camera from a part of Aleppo held by the government, standing in a tidy street with flowing traffic.

In some recaptured areas, people were returning to their shattered homes. A woman in her sixties, who identified herself as Umm Ali, or “Ali’s mother”, said that she, her husband and her disabled daughter had no water.

They were looking after the orphaned children of another daughter killed in the bombing, she said, and were reduced to putting pots and pans in the street to collect rainwater.

In another building near al-Shaar district, which was taken by the army last week, a man was fixing the balcony of his house with his children. “No matter the circumstances, our home is better than displacement,” he said.

All around the buildings in that area were earthen fortifications and rebel slogans daubed on walls. But in a playground, all the equipment was burned.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam in Aleppo, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Pravin Char and Peter Millership)

Syrian army in ‘final stages’ of Aleppo offensive

Smoke and flames rise after air strikes on rebel-controlled besieged area of Aleppo, as seen from a government-held side, in

By Laila Bassam and Lisa Barrington

ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army and its allies are in the “final stages” of recapturing Aleppo after a sudden advance that has pushed rebels to the brink of collapse in an ever-shrinking enclave, a Syrian general said on Monday.

A Reuters journalist in the government-held zone said the bombardment of rebel areas of the city had continued non-stop overnight, and a civilian trapped there described the situation as resembling “Doomsday”.

“The battle in eastern Aleppo should end quickly. They (rebels) don’t have much time. They either have to surrender or die,” Lieutenant General Zaid al-Saleh, head of the government’s Aleppo security committee, told reporters in the recaptured Sheikh Saeed district of the city.

Rebels withdrew from all districts on the east side of the Aleppo river after losing Sheikh Saeed in the south of their pocket in overnight fighting, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It meant their rapidly diminishing enclave had halved in only a few hours and Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman described the battle for Aleppo as having reached its end.

“The situation is extremely difficult today,” said Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group fighting in Aleppo.

An official from Jabha Shamiya, a rebel faction that is also present in Aleppo, said the insurgents might make a new stand along the west bank of the river.

“It is expected there will be a new front line,” said the official, who is based in Turkey.

The rebels’ sudden retreat represented a “big collapse in terrorist morale”, a Syrian military source said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, is now close to taking back full control of Aleppo, which was Syria’s most populous city before the war and would be his greatest prize so far after nearly six years of conflict.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that since the start of the Aleppo battle, more than 2,200 rebels had surrendered and 100,000 civilians had left areas of the city that were controlled by militants.

“People run from one shelling to another to escape death and just to save their souls … It’s doomsday in Aleppo, yes doomsday in Aleppo,” said Abu Amer Iqab, a former government employee in the Sukkari district in the heart of the rebel enclave.

State television footage from Saliheen, one of the districts that had just fallen to the army, showed mounds of rubble and half-collapsed buildings, with bodies still lying on the ground and a few bewildered civilians carrying children or suitcases.

REBELS

While Aleppo’s fall would deal a stunning blow to rebels trying to remove Assad from power, he would still be far from restoring control across Syria. Swathes of the country remain in rebel hands, and on Sunday Islamic State retook Palmyra.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain in rebel-held areas, hemmed in by ever-changing front lines, pounded by air strikes and shelling, and without basic supplies, according to the Observatory, a British-based monitoring group.

In the Sheikh Saeed district, an elderly couple stood lamenting their fate.

“May every son return to his mother. I have suffered that loss. May other women not endure the same,” said the woman, her arms raised to the sky. “I have lost my three children. Two died in battle and the third is kidnapped,” she added, as an army officer attempted to calm her.

Rebel groups in Aleppo received a U.S.-Russian proposal on Sunday for a withdrawal of fighters and civilians from the city’s opposition areas, but Moscow said no agreement had been reached yet in talks in Geneva to end the crisis peacefully.

The rebel official blamed Russia for the lack of progress in talks, saying it had no incentive to compromise while Assad was gaining ground. “The Russians are being evasive. They are looking at the military situation. Now they are advancing,” he said.

The U.S. National Security Council also said, in a message passed on by the American mission in Geneva, that Moscow had rejected a ceasefire. “We proposed an immediate cessation of hostilities to allow for safe departures and the Russians so far have refused,” it said in a statement.

FIGHTING

The Syrian army is backed by Russian war planes and Lebanese and Iraqi Shi’ite militias supported by Iran. Its advances on Monday were aided by a militia of Palestinian refugees in Syria, the Liwa al-Quds or Jerusalem Brigade, the general said.

The mostly Sunni rebels include groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies as well as hardline jihadists who are not supported by the West.

A correspondent for Syria’s official SANA news agency said the army had taken control of Sheikh Saeed, and more than 3,500 people had left at dawn.

A Syrian official told Reuters: “We managed to take full control of the Sheikh Saeed district. This area is very important because it facilitates access to al-Amariya and allows us to secure a greater part of the Aleppo-Ramousah road.” The road is the main entry point to the city from the south.

Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad walk past damaged buildings in the government held Sheikh Saeed district of Aleppo, during a media tour, Syria

Forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad walk past damaged buildings in the government held Sheikh Saeed district of Aleppo, during a media tour, Syria December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

The loss of Palmyra, an ancient desert city whose recapture from Islamic State in March was heralded by Damascus and Moscow as vindicating Russia’s entry into the war, is an embarrassing setback to Assad.

The Observatory reported that the jihadist group carried out eight executions of Syrian soldiers and allied militiamen in Palmyra on Monday while warplanes bombarded their positions around the city.

Another four people, including two children, were shot dead while the jihadists cleared the city, it said.

The Observatory said at least 34 people had died in air raids on an Islamic State-held village north of Palmyra, and that local officials said poison gas had been used. Islamic State accused Russia of the attack. Both Russia and Syria’s military deny using chemical weapons.

CIVILIANS

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday that 728 rebels had laid down their weapons over the previous 24 hours and relocated to western Aleppo. It said 13,346 civilians left rebel-controlled districts of Aleppo over the same period.

“Displaced people are moving,” said an Aleppo resident. Some were moving from areas controlled by the army to opposition areas, while others were going in the opposite direction. Some were staying at home waiting for the army.

The Observatory said that four weeks into the army offensive at least 415 civilians, including 47 children, had been killed in rebel-held parts of the city.

Hundreds had been injured by Russian and Syrian air strikes and shelling by government forces and its allies on the besieged eastern part of the city.

The Observatory said 364 rebel fighters had been killed in the eastern sector. It said rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo had killed 130 civilians, including 40 children. Dozens had been injured.

(This version of the story corrects attribution of comment to U.S. National Security Council)

(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Aleppo, Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Russia says over 8,000 have fled rebel-held Aleppo in last 24 hours

People, who were evacuated from the eastern districts of Aleppo, wait with their belongings in a government held area of Aleppo, Syria,

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian military said on Friday it had helped more than 8,000 Syrian citizens flee parts of eastern Aleppo still controlled by rebels in the last 24 hours, including almost 3,000 children.

The Russian military said in a statement that 14 rebels had also surrendered to Syrian government forces, laying down their weapons and crossing into western Aleppo. They had all been pardoned, it said.

Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday as saying that the Syrian army, which has captured territory including Aleppo’s historic Old City in recent days, had halted military activity to let civilians leave rebel-held territory.

However, Reuters reporters in a government-held part of the city said bombardment could still be heard after his remarks were published. Washington said it had no confirmation that the army had ceased fire.

The Russian defense ministry said its forces were working hard to de-mine areas in eastern Aleppo which Syrian government forces had captured from rebels.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe)

Rebels seek ceasefire with Syrian army closer to retaking Aleppo

Civilians, who evacuated the eastern districts of Aleppo, carry their belongings as they arrive in a government held area of Aleppo, Syria,

By Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels in besieged eastern Aleppo called on Wednesday for an immediate five-day ceasefire and the evacuation of civilians and wounded, but gave no indication they were ready to withdraw as demanded by Damascus and Moscow.

The Syrian army and allied forces have made rapid gains against insurgents in the past two weeks and look closer than ever to restoring full control over Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city before the war, and achieving their most important victory of the conflict now in its sixth year.

In a statement calling for the truce, the rebels made no mention of evacuating the several thousand fighters who are defending an ever shrinking area of eastern Aleppo.

Syria and Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have said they want rebels to leave Aleppo and will not consider a ceasefire unless that happens.

“It’s been a tragedy here for a long time, but I’ve never seen this kind of pressure on the city – you can’t rest for even five minutes, the bombardment is constant,” a resident said.

“Any movement in the streets and there is bombardment (on that area) immediately,” said the east Aleppo resident contacted by Reuters, who declined to be identified. Fear gripped the remaining residents as food and water supplies were cut off.

Retaking Aleppo would also be a success for President Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow’s ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi’ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad.

The Syrian government now appears closer to victory than at any point in the five years since protests against Assad evolved into an armed rebellion. The war in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

Outside of Aleppo, the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts.

People, who evacuated the eastern districts of Aleppo, carry their belongings as they arrive in a government held area of Aleppo, Syria,

People, who evacuated the eastern districts of Aleppo, carry their belongings as they arrive in a government held area of Aleppo, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on December 7, 2016. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

“The decision to liberate all of Syria is taken and Aleppo is part of it,” Assad said in a newspaper interview, according to pro-Damascus television station al-Mayadeen. He described the city as the “last hope” of rebels and their backers.

ARMY RETAKES OLD CITY

The Syrian army now controls all of the Old City of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site including the Umayyad Mosque, which had been held by rebels, the Observatory said.

Explosions and artillery fire could be heard on Syrian state television in districts around the citadel which overlooks the Old City as the army pressed its offensive. More neighborhoods were expected to fall but rebels were fighting ferociously.

Syrian state news agency SANA said rebel shelling killed 12 people in government-held districts of Aleppo.

Rebels have lost control of about 75 percent of their territory in eastern Aleppo in under 10 days, Director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, said.

The “humanitarian initiative” published by rebels called for the evacuation of around 500 critical medical cases.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a potential U.S.-Russia deal to allow Syrian rebels to leave Aleppo safely was still on the agenda.

Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months.

Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Hamburg on Wednesday.

A statement from State Department spokesman John Kirby said the two had “discussed ongoing multilateral efforts to achieve a cessation of hostilities in Aleppo, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid” to civilians there.

Kerry told reporters after the meeting that he and Lavrov would “connect” on Thursday morning.

There was no further detail on the discussions, but State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a news briefing on Wednesday that Kerry and Lavrov were discussing proposals to halt fighting in Aleppo, which could include either safe passage out of Aleppo for opposition forces, or a pause in fighting so that humanitarian aid could be delivered.

An injured woman walks at a site hit by an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Ansari neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria

An injured woman walks at a site hit by an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Ansari neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria December 7, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

“STRATEGIC VICTORY”

Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a week-long ceasefire. Moscow said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce.

The Syrian army’s advance is a “strategic victory” that will prevent foreign intervention and alter the political process, Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar told reporters in Damascus.

“Those who believed in the Syrian triumph, know that (the rebels’) morale is at its lowest and that these collapses that have begun are like domino tiles,” he said.

An official with an Aleppo rebel group, who declined to be named, told Reuters the United States appeared to have no position on the Syrian army assault on Aleppo, just weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

“The Russians want the fighters out and they (the Americans) are ready to coordinate over that”, said the Turkey-based official, citing indirect contacts with U.S. officials.

While rebels say they could fend off the offensive for some time to come, the fighting is complicated by tens of thousands of fearful civilians trapped in the rebel-held area, many of them related to the fighters, the official said.

“The civilian burden is very heavy, in a small area.”

“HEART-BREAKING”

As winter sets in, siege conditions are increasingly desperate, exacerbated by increasing numbers of displaced residents and food and water shortages.

A U.N. official said on Wednesday about 31,500 people from east Aleppo have been displaced around the entire city over the past week, with hundreds more seen on the move on Wednesday.

With hospitals, clinics, water and food cut off, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said the situation was “heart-breaking.”

Very few rebels had quit Aleppo so far, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who described those who were left there as “terrorists” who were uniting around fighters from the group formerly known as the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

People, who evacuated the eastern districts of Aleppo, carry their belongings as they gather in a government held area of Aleppo, Syria,

People, who evacuated the eastern districts of Aleppo, carry their belongings as they gather in a government held area of Aleppo, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on December 7, 2016. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

But eastern Aleppo is widely seen by analysts of the Syria conflict as a bastion of the moderate opposition to Assad, which has maintained that jihadists have little presence in the city.

Civilians wanting to leave east Aleppo should be evacuated to the northern Aleppo countryside, rather than Idlib province, the rebel document said. Idlib is dominated by Islamist groups including Fateh al-Sham, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, and is facing intense bombardment by Russian warplanes.

“Russia wants to move them to Idlib. The fighters have a choice: survive for an extra couple of weeks by going to Idlib or fight to the very end and die in Aleppo,” one senior European diplomat, who declined to be named, said. “For the Russians it’s simple. Place them all in Idlib and then they have all their rotten eggs in one basket.”

On Russian-U.S. talks, the diplomat said: “The assumption is that the U.S. has influence on the ground. I don’t think that’s the case.”

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington, Ellen Francis, Tom Perry, John Davison, Andrew Osborn, Tom Miles, John Irish and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and James Dalgleish)

Syrian troops close in on Aleppo’s Old City, poised for war’s biggest victory

Civil Defence members look for survivors under rubble of damaged buildings after air strikes on the northern neighbourhood of Idlib city, Syria

By Angus McDowall , John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria’s army and allies closed in on areas near Aleppo’s Old City on Tuesday, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five-year civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold.

Rebels said on Tuesday they would never abandon Aleppo, after reports that U.S. and Russian diplomats were preparing to discuss the surrender and evacuation of insurgents from territory they have held for years.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks with the United States on a rebel withdrawal would begin in Geneva as soon as Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. But sources familiar with the plans later told Reuters no talks would take place this week in the Swiss city.

The rebels, who controlled large parts of eastern Aleppo for nearly five years, have lost around two thirds of their territory in the city over the past two weeks.

The government now appears closer to victory in the city than at any point since 2012, the year after rebels took up arms to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it would now accept no truce in Aleppo, should any outside parties try to negotiate one. Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a weeklong ceasefire. Moscow said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce.

Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in rebel-held districts of Aleppo, reduced to a few kilometers across. The United Nations, whose staff are restricted to government-controlled areas of the city, on Tuesday described “a very disastrous situation in eastern Aleppo”.

“There has been heavy shelling on us, there are massacres (of civilians), there’s no electricity and little internet access,” said Abu Youssef, a resident of one of the areas still held by the fighters.

Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months. Moscow wants negotiations with Washington to facilitate such an evacuation.

But despite Lavrov’s announcement of a meeting in Geneva, a U.S. official said firm plans for talks had never been set, though Washington was still working to reopen negotiations.

“We’re not going to negotiate this publicly,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Rebels have told U.S. officials they will not withdraw, and said there had been no more formal contact with Washington on the topic since last week.

“The Americans asked if we wanted to leave or to stay … we said this is our city, and we will defend it,” Zakaria Malahifji, a Turkey-based official for the Fastaqim rebel group, told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Cold War-era superpowers have backed opposing sides in the war, but Russia has intervened far more openly and decisively, joining Iran as well as Iraqi and Lebanese Shi’ite groups to back Assad.

Some of the groups fighting in eastern Aleppo have received support in a U.S.-backed military aid program to rebels deemed moderate by the West. However, this has been minimal compared to massive Russian air support to aid Assad’s government, which has turned the tide of the war in his favor over the past year.

The army said it had taken over areas to the east of the Old City including al-Shaar, Marja and Karm al-Qaterji, bringing them closer to cutting off another pocket of rebel control.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al-Shaar and some other areas had been taken, but did not immediately confirm the takeover of all the areas announced by the army. A Turkey-based rebel official denied al-Shaar had been taken but said fighting continued in the neighborhood.

Outside of Aleppo, the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts. The Observatory said a heavy Syrian and Russian aerial bombardment in the last three days in the mostly rebel-held Idlib province to the southwest had killed more than 100 people.

WINTER IS COMING

The rebels’ loss of the eastern half of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, would be the biggest victory of the conflict so far for Assad, securing his grip on all Syria’s main cities.

It would also be a success for President Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow’s ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi’ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad.

U.N. official Jens Laerke said: “Winter is approaching, it’s already getting very, very cold so that has come up as a priority need … Food is running out, the little food that is available is being sold at extremely inflated prices.”

While rebels have said they will not leave, one opposition official, who declined to be identified, conceded they may have no alternative for the sake of civilians who have been under siege for five months and faced relentless government assaults.

Insurgents, meanwhile, have fought back ferociously inside Aleppo. Some of the fighting took place on Monday within a kilometer of the ancient citadel, a large fortress built on a mound, and around the historic Old City.

With narrow alleyways, big mansions and covered markets, the ancient city of Aleppo became a UNESCO heritage site in 1986. Many historic buildings have been destroyed in the fighting.

Apart from their support for rebels fighting against Assad, Western countries are also taking part in a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim militant group which broke away from other anti-Assad groups to proclaim a caliphate in territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

Moscow says helping Assad is the best way to defeat Islamic State. Western countries say the group gains strength from the fury unleashed by Assad’s military crackdown on his enemies.

France, a staunch backer of the anti-Assad opposition, will convene foreign ministers of like-minded countries in Paris on Saturday to try to come up with some form of strategy in the wake of the Aleppo onslaught, although few diplomats expect anything concrete to be achieved.

Western countries say that even if government forces take Aleppo, they will still not be able to end the conflict, as long as millions of Syrians see the government as a brutal enemy.

“Aleppo falls, but the war goes on,” said one U.S. official.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, John Irish in Paris, John Davison and in Beirut and Jonathan Landay, Yeganeh Torbati and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; writing by Peter Millership; editing by Peter Graff)

Russia says to start talks with U.S. on Aleppo rebel withdrawal

smoke rises after air strike

By Ellen Francis, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Maria Kiselyova

BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian government said on Monday it would start talks with Washington on a rebel withdrawal from Aleppo this week as Russian-backed Syrian forces fought to seize more territory from rebels who are struggling to avoid a major defeat.

The latest army attack, which saw fierce clashes around the Old City, aims to cut off another area of rebel control in eastern Aleppo and tighten the noose on opposition-held districts where tens of thousands of people are trapped.

Advances in recent weeks have brought Damascus, backed militarily by Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, closer to recapturing Syria’s second largest city before the nearly six-year war and a prize long sought by President Bashar al-Assad.

The rebels are now reduced to an area just kilometers across.

While Assad’s allies have in the past year turned the battle in his favor, Western and regional states backing the rebels have been unwilling or unable to prevent a major defeat for groups who have fought for years to topple the Syrian leader.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks with the United States on the withdrawal of rebels would begin in Geneva on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. There was no immediate comment from Washington, which has backed some of the rebels.

“Those armed groups who refuse to leave eastern Aleppo will be considered to be terrorists,” Lavrov told a news conference. “We will treat them as such, as terrorists, as extremists and will support a Syrian army operation against those criminal squads.”

While the rebels have said they will not leave, one opposition official, who declined to be identified, conceded they may have no alternative for the sake of civilians who have been under siege for five months and faced relentless government bombardments.

“The people are paying a high price, with no state or organization intervening,” the official said, adding that this was his personal assessment based on reports from the city.

With narrow alleyways, big mansions and covered markets the ancient city of Aleppo became a UNESCO heritage site in 1986. Many historic buildings have been destroyed in the fighting.

BLACK SMOKE RISES NEAR CITADEL

Responding to Russia’s demand for their withdrawal, rebels told U.S. officials on Saturday they would not leave. Reiterating that position on Monday, rebel official Zakaria Malahifji said, “No person in his right mind, who has any sense of responsibility and patriotism, would leave his city.”

“The Russians are trying to do everything they can to make people leave. This is far from reality,” he said, speaking to Reuters from Turkey.

Insurgents, meanwhile, fought back ferociously inside Aleppo. Some of the fighting took place within a kilometre of the ancient citadel, a large fortress built on a mound, and around the historic Old City.

Heavy gunfire could be heard from the Old City and smoke from mortar shell blasts rose from the area, Reuters journalists in a government-held western district said.

Rebels appeared on the verge of being driven from the al-Shaar neighborhood after new advances by Syrian government forces on Sunday. But rebels said they had mounted a counter-attack on Monday, and were recovering ground in some areas.

Clashes raged in the Old City itself, which has long been split between government- and rebel-held areas, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

A Syrian army officer told Reuters intense fighting was taking place around the Old City.

State television broadcast a report from inside a hospital complex seized from rebels on Sunday. The hospital is strategically important because it overlooks surrounding areas held by insurgents.

A government takeover of the eye hospital complex and areas stretching west from there to the citadel would cut the remaining rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo in two, further isolating embattled rebel groups. Rebels said they were fighting back in that area too on Monday.

REBELS LAUNCH COUNTER-ATTACKS

“They (rebels) are trying to take back all the areas the regime took yesterday (including) the eye hospital, al-Myassar,” Malahifji said.

Moscow said a rebel attack on a mobile military hospital killed one Russian medic and wounded two others.

The United Nations says more than 200,000 people might still be trapped in rebel-held areas, affected by severe food and aid shortages. “We need to reach them,” U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien said in Geneva on Monday.

“People have been eking what they can, prices have skyrocketed so there is a real and severe shortage of foodstuffs.”

Russia is expected to veto a U.N. resolution on Monday which calls for a seven-day ceasefire, with Lavrov saying a truce was counter-productive because it would allow rebels to regroup.

State TV said rebel shelling killed seven people in government-held areas of Aleppo on Monday.

More than 300 people have been killed in government bombardments of rebel-held areas since mid-November, and 70 have died in rebel shellings, the Syrian Observatory says.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Firas Makdesi in Aleppo, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Jack Stubbs in Moscow; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Millership)

Russia says will treat as terrorists rebels who refuse to leave Aleppo

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday he was confident Moscow and Washington can reach a deal in talks this week on the withdrawal of all rebels from the eastern part of the Syrian city of Aleppo.

He told a news conference once the deal was reached, rebels who stay in the besieged eastern part of the city will be treated as terrorists and Russia will support the operation of the Syrian army against them.

“Those armed groups who refuse to leave eastern Aleppo will be considered to be terrorists,” Lavrov said. “We will treat them as such, as terrorists, as extremists and will support a Syrian army operation against those criminal squads.”

Russia and the United States will start talks on the withdrawal in Geneva on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has sent his proposals on routes and timing of the withdrawal, Lavrov said.

“We believe that when the Americans proposed their initiative for militants to leave eastern Aleppo, they realized what steps they and their allies, who have an influence on militants stuck in eastern Aleppo, would have to take.”

He added that a United Nations resolution on a ceasefire would be counterproductive because a ceasefire would allow rebels to regroup.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova,; writing by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Christian Lowe)

Turkey, Russia see need for Aleppo truce but divisions remain

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shakes hands with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Alanya, Turkey,

By Tulay Karadeniz

ALANYA, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkey and Russia, two of the main backers of opposing sides in Syria’s civil war, said on Thursday they agreed on the need for a halt to fighting and the provision of aid in Aleppo but deep divisions remain between them over the conflict.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he and his visiting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov agreed on the need for a ceasefire in Aleppo, but added that Turkey’s stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was unchanged.

Russia is a main backer of Assad, while Turkey supports the rebels fighting to oust him. The rebels have come under siege in eastern Aleppo after rapid advances by Syrian government forces in recent days, bringing them to the brink of a major defeat.

“A ceasefire must be achieved in all of Syria, notably in Aleppo,” Cavusoglu told a joint news conference in the Mediterranean town of Alanya, adding Turkey was in agreement with Russia in broad terms on the need for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid and political transition.

Lavrov said the bloodshed must stop in Syria and the region, that Moscow was ready to talk to all parties in the war, and that it would continue cooperating with Turkey. But he also vowed Russia would continue its operations in eastern Aleppo and would rescue the city from what he described as terrorists.

Syrian rebels on Wednesday vowed to fight on in east Aleppo in the face of sudden government advances that have cut the city’s opposition sector by a third.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed the situation in Aleppo with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin by phone for the third time in a week on Wednesday and agreed on the need for a ceasefire, sources in Erdogan’s office said.

While remaining divided on Assad’s future, Ankara and Moscow have been trying to find common ground on Syria since a rapprochement in August.

(Writing by Nick Tattersall and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Daren Butler and Andrew Heavens)

Assad, allies aim to seize all Aleppo before Trump takes power

A Syrian government soldier gestures a v-sign under the Syrian national flag near a general view of eastern Aleppo after they took control of al-Sakhour neigbourhood in Aleppo, Syria

By Laila Bassam and Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army and its allies aim to seize all eastern Aleppo from rebels by the time U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, sticking by a Russian-backed timeline for the operation after big gains in recent days, a senior official in the military alliance fighting in support of Damascus said.

The official who declined to be identified in order to speak freely indicated however that the next phase of the Aleppo campaign could be more difficult as the army and its allies seek to capture more densely populated areas of the city.

The rebels have lost more than a third of the area they held in eastern Aleppo in the last few days of a government assault that has killed hundreds of people and uprooted thousands more. For the rebels, it is one of the gravest moments of the war.

Rebels meanwhile fought fiercely to stop government forces advancing deeper into the opposition-held enclave on Tuesday, confronting pro-Assad militias who sought to move into the area from the southeast, a rebel official said.

The attack on eastern Aleppo threatens to snuff out the most important urban center of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, who has been firmly on the offensive for more than a year thanks to Russian and Iranian military support.

Capturing rebel-held eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory to date for Assad in the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since it arose out of protests against his rule nearly six years ago.

As Russia and Iran have stuck steadfastly by Assad, the rebels say their foreign backers including the United States have left them to their fate in their besieged enclave of eastern Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the civil war.

 

Syrian government soldiers walk near a general view of eastern Aleppo after they took control of al-Sakhour neigbourhood in Aleppo,

Syrian government soldiers walk near a general view of eastern Aleppo after they took control of al-Sakhour neigbourhood in Aleppo, Syria in this handout picture provided by SANA on November 28, 2016. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

Government forces backed by Shi’ite militias from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq punched into the rebel-held area from the northeast last week. The senior, pro-Assad official said the rebel lines had collapsed more quickly than expected.

“The Russians want to complete the operation before Trump takes power,” said the official, repeating a previous timetable which pro-Damascus sources had said was drawn up to mitigate the risks of any shift in U.S. policy towards the war in Syria.

Trump has indicated that he may abandon support for Syrian rebels who have received military aid from states including the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and could even cooperate with Russia against Islamic State in the country.

He will be inaugurated as president on January 20.

The United States has offered aid including military support to some rebel groups under President Barack Obama, though the rebels have always said this backing has fallen well short of what they need against better armed government forces.

THE WEST “CAN’T DO ANYTHING”

The rebel official said the outgoing U.S. administration was paying little attention to Syria. Assad and his allies were “trying to exploit the current circumstances, unfortunately, and the Western states can’t do anything”, he said.

France, another backer of the opposition, called for an immediate U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss Aleppo.

“More than ever before, we need to urgently put in place means to end the hostilities and to allow humanitarian aid to get through unhindered,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a statement.

Russia has consistently blocked attempts by Western states to take action in the Security Council against Damascus.

A bomb hangs on a parachute while falling over the rebel-held besieged al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria.

A bomb hangs on a parachute while falling over the rebel-held besieged al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

Accounts from eastern Aleppo, where the United Nations says at least 250,000 civilians are trapped with no access to the outside world, point to a dire humanitarian situation. People have been forced to scavenge in the garbage for food as aid supplies have run out, and all the hospitals in eastern Aleppo have been repeatedly bombed.

The civil defense rescue service that operates in eastern Aleppo said on Monday it had nearly run out fuel to power the equipment it has been using to pull people from the rubble of bombed-out buildings.

Pummeled by air strikes, artillery and ground attacks, the rebels were forced on Monday to withdraw to more defensible lines along a highway that runs through Aleppo, hoping that it would be harder for the government side to make further gains.

The rebel official with one of the main Aleppo rebel groups said the opposition fighters had managed to stabilize new frontlines, but were fighting to stop pro-government militias that sought to advance from the south.

FIERCE BATTLES

“There is no progress but the bombardment and battles remain fierce, particularly in Aziza” in southeastern Aleppo, said the official with the Jabha Shamiya rebel group, which fights under the Free Syrian Army banner. “Yesterday evening there was a big mobilization by Iranian militias in Aziza,” the official added.

The government and its allies gradually besieged the rebel-held sector of Aleppo this year before abandoning a ceasefire to launch a fierce assault in September.

The latest fighting has forced thousands to flee. Some have crossed the frontline to government-held areas, others have sought refuge in a Kurdish-controlled part of the city, and many more have fled deeper into the remaining rebel-held area.

Air strikes on Bab al-Nairab, a district in the rebel-held area, killed at least 10 people and left dozens more wounded or missing, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the civil defense rescue service said. The Syrian military could not be reached for comment.

The civil defense said government planes struck as people were trying to flee the neighborhood on foot, killing 25.

The United Nations humanitarian chief and relief coordinator said up to 16,000 people had been displaced in eastern Aleppo.

The U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said he could not say how long eastern Aleppo would hold out.

“Clearly, I cannot deny – this is a military acceleration and I can’t tell you how long eastern Aleppo will last,” he told the European Parliament.

Russia said that the army’s breakthrough in Aleppo had dramatically altered the situation on the ground, allowing more than 80,000 civilians to access humanitarian aid after years of what it described as being used by militants as human shields.

“During the last 24 hours, thanks to very well-prepared and careful actions, Syrian soldiers were able to radically change the situation,” Major-General Igor Konashenkov, a defense ministry spokesman, said in a statement.

“Practically half of the territory occupied by rebels in recent years in the eastern part of Aleppo has been completely liberated.”

A medic in eastern Aleppo who gave his name as Abu al-Abbas said however there was “intense fear of collective annihilation”.

“This week I’ve changed locations three times,” he added, speaking on Monday using a social networking site. “In the shelter, we had dead people who we couldn’t take out because the bombardment was so intense,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Angus McDowall in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Andrew Osborn and Katya Golubkova in Moscow, John Irish in Paris, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles in Geneva; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Peter Graff)