US-led coalition targets water pumping stations in Aleppo

[Bleipriester]

Water pumping stations are ISIS now?

"Aleppo, SANA – The US-led international coalition, allegedly fighting ISIS, targeted Thursday water pumping stations in al-Khafseh area, east of Aleppo, causing them to go out of service.

A source at Aleppo Governorate told SANA reporter that Aleppo Water Establishment will immediately start the necessary maintenance measures to fix the damaged pumping stations so as to operate them again as quickly as possible.

On October 10th, two F16 aircrafts belonging to the US-led coalition violated the Syrian airspace, targeting infrastructure and destroying two power plants in al-Rudwaniya area to the east of Aleppo city."

US-led coalition targets water pumping stations in Aleppo | Syrian Arab News Agency

 

[waltky]

Aleppo Doctors Without Borders hospital obliterated...

Casualties mount from bombardment in Syria's largest city
Apr 28,`16 -- Airstrikes and artillery killed more than 60 people in the past 24 hours in Aleppo, including dozens at a hospital in a rebel-held neighborhood, as Syria's largest city was turned once again into a major battleground in the civil war, officials said Thursday.

Aid agencies warn that Aleppo is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster with the collapse of a two-month cease-fire and stalled peace talks. The intensified violence - by far the worst since the partial cease-fire began - coincides with reports of a military buildup outside Aleppo that many fear is a prelude for a government attempt to force a complete siege of the city's neighborhoods. Battle-hardened residents were shocked by the bloodshed. Opposition activists accused the government of carpet-bombing rebel-controlled areas, while Syrian state media said more than 1,000 mortar rounds and rockets were fired at government-held districts, killing 22 people. Video posted online by opposition activists showed rescuers pulling bodies from shattered buildings in the rebel neighborhoods of Sukkari, Kallasa and Bustan al-Qasr.

In one scene, a building's staircase hung sideways and old men were sobbing. "The walls, cupboards, everything fell on top of them," cried one man. In another, a clearly terrified small girl with pigtails wept silently while held by a man. A blond girl walked from the rubble behind her mother, questioning why they were bombed. "What have we done?" she cried. In the rebel-held Sukkari neighborhood, 27 people died as a well-known field hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee for the Red Cross was hit overnight, along with nearby buildings, according to opposition activists and rescue workers. U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura appealed to the U.S. and Russia to help revive the peace talks and cease-fire, which he said "hangs by a thread." However, the violence only escalated.

Chief opposition negotiator Mohammed Alloush blamed the government of President Bashar Assad for the violence, saying it shows "the environment is not conducive to any political action." "What is happening is a crime of ethnic and sectarian cleansing by all means," Alloush told The Associated Press, adding it was an attempt by Assad's government to drive residents from Aleppo. But a citizen journalist said there was little sign of people fleeing the city. "Where can they go?" said Bahaa al-Halaby. A Damascus-based Syrian military official denied the government had hit the hospital. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov also denied bombing any hospitals in Aleppo, saying its aircraft have not flown any missions in the region for several days. Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State group, said fighter jets from the international coalition have not carried out any airstrikes in Aleppo in the past 24 hours. About 200 civilians have been killed in the past week in Syria, nearly half of them around Aleppo.

MORE

Syria conflict: Aleppo in 'catastrophic' state says UN
Thu, 28 Apr 2016 - The situation in Syria's city of Aleppo is catastrophic, the UN says, after attacks on targets including a hospital kill dozens.

Air strikes on and around the Medecins Sans Frontieres-backed al-Quds hospital killed at least 27 people, while more than 30 died in other attacks. UN envoy Jan Egeland said the next days would be vital for the humanitarian aid lifeline for much of Syria. The violence has left a partial truce hanging by a thread. UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura warned the cessation of hostilities agreed between non-jihadist rebels and government forces on 27 February was now "barely alive". Separately, the Syrian government reported that 150 US troops had arrived in the town of Rmeilan in Syria's predominantly northern Kurdish province of Hassakeh, denouncing it as an "illegitimate intervention". US President Barack Obama said last week he was deploying 250 troops to Syria to help certain rebel groups fight so-called Islamic State (IS).

'Millions in danger'

Mr Egeland, the head of the UN humanitarian assistance to Syria, said he had been briefed on "the catastrophic deterioration in Aleppo over the last 24-48 hours... No-one doubts the severity of the situation." He warned that the humanitarian lifeline for much of the country was at risk."I could not in any way express how high the stakes are for the next hours and days. "So many humanitarian health workers and relief workers are being bombed, killed, maimed at the moment that the whole lifeline to millions of people is now also at stake." Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said at least 14 patients and three doctors had been killed in the air strike on al-Quds hospital. Among those killed was Mohammed Wasim Moaz, one of the city's last paediatricians, MSF said. An MSF representative, Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, told the BBC Dr Moaz had worked at the hospital since 2013.

Mr Zabalgogeazkoa said: "He kept it going, was always there and always worried about the needs of the people. He was honest and very committed. He worked in conditions you cannot even begin to imagine." Local sources blamed war planes from the Syrian military or from Russia, which is supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, for the attack. The Syrian military denied targeting the hospital. A military source was quoted on state TV as saying: "Such news is merely an attempt to cover up terrorist crimes which target peaceful citizens in Aleppo." An activist at the scene, named Zuhair, told the BBC: "It was an air strike by two rockets, heavy rockets from [a] Russian air strike. "Near the hospital, one building on five floors just crumbled and just crashed down and we don't know how many dead will be under these ruins." However, Russian news agencies quoted the Russian defence ministry as saying it had carried out no air strikes in Aleppo in the past few days.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said he was "outraged" by the hospital attack, adding: "It appears to have been a deliberate strike on a known medical facility and follows the Assad regime's appalling record of striking such facilities." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on both the US and Russia to exert pressure to stop the violence, and demanded a credible investigation into the hospital attack. Monitoring groups said at least 20 people were killed in other attacks on rebel-held areas in Aleppo on Thursday, while at least 14 died in rocket strikes on government-controlled neighbourhoods. The upsurge in violence comes amid reports that the Syrian army, backed by Russian air power, is gearing up for a major offensive in Aleppo.

Analysis by Jim Muir, BBC News, Beirut

 

[skye]

The US-led coalition has not a good record when it comes to these sort of atrocities in Syria.

It is, as if they consciously want to finish off, the little of what is left inside that ravaged country.