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The announcement from Staffan de Mistura, the U.N.'s special envoy for Syria, comes hours after a military strike on rebel-held Qaterji. He cut short a humanitarian aid meeting Thursday after just eight minutes, saying it made "no sense" to continue plans for aid when humanitarian workers are not allowed in the devastated areas. He said convoys have not been able to reach areas most in need. "I decided to use my privilege as chair to declare that there was no sense to have a humanitarian meeting today unless we got some action on the humanitarian side in Syria," De Mistura said. "What we are hearing and seeing is only fighting, offensives, counteroffensives, rockets, barrel bombs, mortars, hellfire cannons, napalm, chlorine, snipers, airstrikes, suicide bombers."
[video]
De Mistura again called for a 48-hour halt in gunfire to allow for deliveries of aid that includes medications, food and water. He said the task force is suspended until next week in the hopes of bringing together the United States and Russia. "I insist, on behalf of the U.N. secretary general, to have a 48-hour pause in Aleppo," he said. "That would require some heavy lifting not only by the two co-chairs [Russia and the United States] but also those who have influence on the ground."
In the most recent strike on Wednesday night, rescue workers scrambled to free the injured from a collapsed apartment building, including 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh, his three siblings and their parents. A video, shot by photojournalist Mahmoud Raglan for the Aleppo Media Center, showed Omran being carried in to an ambulance and sitting quietly, wiping his hand on his face and looking at the blood. Omran and his family were treated at a local hospital and released. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people died in the attack. The video of Omran has since gone viral and is reminiscent of the image of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, a Syrian boy who was found dead on a Turkish beach and became a symbol of the migrant crisis.
Video, image of wounded boy in Aleppo captures world's attention
Granny says, "Awww -poor lil' fella...
Video, image of wounded boy in Aleppo captures world's attention
Aug. 18, 2016 -- The United Nations suspended the work of its humanitarian aid task force in Syria amid ongoing airstrikes, including one that injured a 5-year-old boy who has become the most recent face of the country's bloody civil war.
The announcement from Staffan de Mistura, the U.N.'s special envoy for Syria, comes hours after a military strike on rebel-held Qaterji. He cut short a humanitarian aid meeting Thursday after just eight minutes, saying it made "no sense" to continue plans for aid when humanitarian workers are not allowed in the devastated areas. He said convoys have not been able to reach areas most in need. "I decided to use my privilege as chair to declare that there was no sense to have a humanitarian meeting today unless we got some action on the humanitarian side in Syria," De Mistura said. "What we are hearing and seeing is only fighting, offensives, counteroffensives, rockets, barrel bombs, mortars, hellfire cannons, napalm, chlorine, snipers, airstrikes, suicide bombers."
[video]
De Mistura again called for a 48-hour halt in gunfire to allow for deliveries of aid that includes medications, food and water. He said the task force is suspended until next week in the hopes of bringing together the United States and Russia. "I insist, on behalf of the U.N. secretary general, to have a 48-hour pause in Aleppo," he said. "That would require some heavy lifting not only by the two co-chairs [Russia and the United States] but also those who have influence on the ground."
In the most recent strike on Wednesday night, rescue workers scrambled to free the injured from a collapsed apartment building, including 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh, his three siblings and their parents. A video, shot by photojournalist Mahmoud Raglan for the Aleppo Media Center, showed Omran being carried in to an ambulance and sitting quietly, wiping his hand on his face and looking at the blood. Omran and his family were treated at a local hospital and released. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people died in the attack. The video of Omran has since gone viral and is reminiscent of the image of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, a Syrian boy who was found dead on a Turkish beach and became a symbol of the migrant crisis.
Video, image of wounded boy in Aleppo captures world's attention
Russia's Izvestia newspaper said a group of Su-24 and Su-34 aircraft had arrived at the Hmeymim base near the coastal city of Latakia and additional Su-25 ground attack fighters would also be deployed "if need be," Reuters reported. The aircraft deployment came as Assad's ground forces, backed by Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, clashed with rebels in the center of Aleppo, once a city of two million and Syria's commercial hub before the civil war began in 2011. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, reported heavy bombardment by government forces and "back and forth" fighting in the city.
Stephen O'Brien, the top emergency relief official for the United Nations, told the Security Council Thursday that Aleppo faced a "humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria." Dr. Richard Brennan, emergency response director for the UN's World Health Organization, said that 338 people, including 100 children, had been killed in Aleppo by Russian and Syrian bombardment in the past week. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov charged that the U.S. was complicit in the carnage in Aleppo by backing rebels holding the eastern sector of the city, where the United Nations estimates that about 250,000 people have been blocked from receiving humanitarian aid convoys.
Russian Su-24 bombers fly during the Victory Day military parade marking 71 years after the victory in WWII in Red Square in Moscow, Russia
Lavrov told the BBC that the U.S. had reneged on a pledge to attack the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat Fatah al-Sham group, formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, which has joined more moderate rebel groups in the fight against Assad's forces. "They (the US) pledged solemnly to take as a priority an obligation to separate the opposition from Nusra," Lavrov said. State Department spokesman Mark Toner called Lavrov's charges "absurd." On Thursday, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said "the whole 'opposition' ostensibly fighting a 'civil war' in Syria is a U.S.-controlled terrorist international."
Three weeks ago, Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated a "cessation of hostilities" that was to lead to U.S.-Russian coordination in attacks on al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The cease fire collapsed within a week after U.S. and coalition mistakenly bombed what were reportedly Syrian government forces in eastern Syria and Russian and Syrian aircraft were blamed for bombing a UN aid convoy headed to Aleppo. Russia began bombing and sending artillery and anti-aircraft batteries into Syria last Sept. 30 to prop up Assad. "Of course, we're not going to plunge into the conflict," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time.
Russia Sends More Warplanes into Battle for Aleppo | Military.com
Opposition activists have blamed Russia for most of the recent airstrikes against rebel-held neighborhoods of east Aleppo city that have killed more than 320 civilians in the past two weeks and demolished many buildings. The anniversary came as violence in different parts of Syria claimed more lives Friday, mainly in Aleppo city where at least 12 people were killed and dozens more wounded. A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks Syria's civil war said a year of Russian airstrikes have killed 9,364 people in the war-torn country. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include 3,804 civilians, among them 906 children. The dead also include 2,746 members of the Islamic State group and 2,814 from other rebel and militant groups, including al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria.
Russia on Friday is marking one year since it launched its air campaign in Syria in support of Assad. In light of that, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to Russians abroad about possible "provocations," urging them to exercise caution. A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia's involvement in Syria is justified by the fact that militants have not managed to capture the capital, Damascus. Marking the 1st anniversary, Dmitry Peskov said that Putin never gave a timeline for how long the bombing mission might last and still won't. Russia's declared goal was to support the Syrian government of Russia's long-term ally Assad and Peskov insisted that in that respect the operation has been a success.
Syrians inspect damaged buildings after airstrikes by government helicopters on the Aleppo neighborhood of Mashhad, Syria
If it wasn't for the Russian involvement, the Islamic State group and other "terrorists" would have been "sitting in Damascus," he told reporters. Regarding figures cited by the Observatory on casualties as a result of the airstrikes, he said he would not comment reports by "a group based in the U.K." The Observatory relies on a network of activists on the ground inside Syria. Also Friday, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is doing all it can together with the Syrian government to help the U.N. arrange weekly pauses in Aleppo to deliver humanitarian goods. "It's the Nusra-controlled people in eastern Aleppo who refuse," he said referring to the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front, which used to be known as the Nusra Front.
Speaking to BBC about his country's military operations in Syria, Lavrov said: "We are not using any munition which is prohibited by the United Nations. I can assure." The backers of the opposition blasted the Russian intervention. "Russia claims to be committed to a political solution in Syria, yet since its military intervention, the brutal Assad regime still clings to power. Russia's action has not curbed the regime's atrocities," said Britain's Special Representative to Syria, Gareth Bayley. "Russia has proved to be either unwilling or unable to influence Assad and must bear its responsibility for the Assad regime's atrocities."
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The chief of Russia's General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, said earlier this week the moratorium, which was also approved by Syrian officials, was intended to "avoid pointless casualties." He said rebels would be allowed to leave the city along two new corridors, one leading to the Turkish border and the other to the city of Idlib. The rebels are not required to surrender their weapons. Six other exits are available to civilians who wish to evacuate.
Rebel fighters ride a pickup truck with civilians fleeing conflict in Dahiyet al-Assad, west Aleppo city, Syria, Oct. 30, 2016. A new cease-fire allows civilians and rebels to leave the embattled city.
However, rebel groups in Aleppo have dismissed Russia's offer, accusing them of lying and calling the cease-fire a media stunt for "public consumption." Similar humanitarian pauses have been organized by Moscow and Damascus before, but have largely failed.
The most recent was in mid-October, when United Nations and Red Cross aid trucks sat at the Turkish border for weeks, awaiting confirmation that it was safe for them to pass. In mid-September, airstrikes on a U.N. aid convoy near Aleppo killed at least 20 people, the Red Cross reported. The United Nations says about 250,000 civilians on Aleppo’s eastern side are desperate for supplies and hundreds of others urgently need to be evacuated for medical care.
'Humanitarian Pause' Begins in Aleppo
White House national security adviser Susan Rice said the United States condemned "in the strongest terms" the latest air strikes against hospitals and urged Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to take steps to halt the violence. Intense air strikes have battered the eastern part of the city since Tuesday, when the Syrian army and its allies resumed operations after a pause lasting weeks. They launched ground attacks against insurgent positions on Friday. The war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 48 people, including at least five children, had been killed in eastern Aleppo on Saturday by dozens of air strikes and barrel bombs and dozens of artillery rounds. That brings the number of people killed by the increased bombardment of Aleppo and the surrounding countryside over the past five days to about 180, including 97 in the city's besieged eastern sector, the observatory added.
Warplanes, artillery and helicopters continued bombarding eastern Aleppo on Saturday, hitting many of its densely populated residential districts, the Observatory said. There were intense clashes in the Bustan al-Basha district, it added. "This destruction of infrastructure essential to life leaves the besieged, resolute people, including all children and elderly men and women, without any health facilities offering life-saving treatment ... leaving them to die," said Aleppo's health directorate in a statement sent to Reuters late on Friday by an opposition official. Elizabeth Hoff, the WHO representative in Syria, said on Saturday that a U.N.-led group of aid agencies based over the border in Turkey "confirmed today that all hospitals in eastern Aleppo are out of service".
"SICKENING"
The monitoring group said some hospitals were still operating in besieged parts of Aleppo but said many residents were frightened to use them because of the heavy shelling. Medical sources, residents and rebels in eastern Aleppo say hospitals have been damaged by air strikes and helicopter barrel bombs in recent days, including direct hits on the buildings. "The United States again joins our partners ... in demanding the immediate cessation of these bombardments and calling on Russia to immediately deescalate violence and facilitate humanitarian aid and access for the Syrian people," Rice said in a statement. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson tweeted that reports of air strikes hitting civilians and hospitals in east Aleppo were "sickening" and called for a return to diplomacy.
However, with the United States awaiting the inauguration in late January of President-elect Donald Trump, who has been critical of Washington's Syria policy without laying out detailed plans himself, diplomatic efforts appear stalled. Staffan De Mistura, the special envoy of the U.N. secretary general, is likely to meet Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moalem in Damascus on Sunday after recent talks in Turkey and Iran, another diplomat said. "He will push on Aleppo, perhaps on a ceasefire, but on the political file there won't be anything until (U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon's successor Antonio) Guterres is in office, the diplomat said.
DENIAL
Some of the heaviest bombardment so far on Aleppo has left rebel-held parts of the Syrian city virtually without medical facilities, observers say. The World Health Organization says all makeshift hospitals there are out of service, after five days of air and artillery strikes by government forces. Other reports suggest some that hospitals are operational but people are too frightened to use them. A White House statement called the assault on hospitals "heinous". The Syria Civil Defence, a volunteer group also known as the White Helmets, said that 61 civilians had been killed in Saturday's air strikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
A Syrian civil defence volunteer carries an injured man
The government-led assault on the area resumed on Tuesday, after a three-week moratorium. Medics have in the past been able to bring field hospitals back into operation after strikes, but the lack of supplies is now so severe that this is becoming harder, Reuters news agency reports. The recent bombardment has left streets deserted, with people trying to shelter in their homes. The SOHR says the strikes have been so massive that residents are frightened to use medical facilities. Reuters quotes the WHO's representative in Syria, Elizabeth Hoff, as saying on Saturday that NGOs based over the border in Turkey "confirmed today that all hospitals in eastern Aleppo are out of service".
Food running out
On Friday the UN envoy for Syria's humanitarian adviser, Jan Egeland, said eastern Aleppo faced a "bleak moment" with supplies low and winter coming. "My understanding is that virtually all warehouses are now empty and tens of thousands of families are running out of food," he told Reuters. Also on Friday, a volunteer with the White Helmets Civil Defence force told agency AFP news agency that he had "never heard such intense artillery bombardments". His team had been unable to respond to an emergency call because "the shells are falling on the street", he said. Aleppo, once Syria's commercial and industrial hub, has been divided roughly in two since 2012, with the government controlling the west and rebels the east. On 22 September, two weeks after encircling the east and reimposing a siege on its estimated 275,000 residents, the army launched an all-out assault to take full control of the city with the help of Iranian-backed militias and the Russian air force.
By the end of October, the strikes had killed more than 700 civilians in the east, while rocket fire had left scores dead in the west, according to the UN. Russia says its air force is active in other parts of Syria, but not operating over Aleppo. A statement by White House national security adviser Susan Rice condemned what she called "heinous actions". "The Syrian regime and its allies, Russia in particular, bear responsibility for the immediate and long-term consequences these actions have caused in Syria and beyond," she said. UK International Development Secretary Priti Patel said the assault was part of "a systematic campaign to remove even the most basic of services left in the city" that left hundreds of thousands of people without access to healthcare.
Syria conflict: Aleppo hospitals 'knocked out by bombardment' - BBC News
No hospitals left in Aleppo...
All hospitals in eastern Aleppo out of action after bombardments: officials
November 19, 2016 - All hospitals in Syria's besieged rebel-held eastern Aleppo are out of service after days of heavy air strikes, its health directorate and the World Health Organization (WHO) said, though a war monitor said some were still functioning.
White House national security adviser Susan Rice said the United States condemned "in the strongest terms" the latest air strikes against hospitals and urged Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to take steps to halt the violence. Intense air strikes have battered the eastern part of the city since Tuesday, when the Syrian army and its allies resumed operations after a pause lasting weeks. They launched ground attacks against insurgent positions on Friday. The war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 48 people, including at least five children, had been killed in eastern Aleppo on Saturday by dozens of air strikes and barrel bombs and dozens of artillery rounds. That brings the number of people killed by the increased bombardment of Aleppo and the surrounding countryside over the past five days to about 180, including 97 in the city's besieged eastern sector, the observatory added.
Warplanes, artillery and helicopters continued bombarding eastern Aleppo on Saturday, hitting many of its densely populated residential districts, the Observatory said. There were intense clashes in the Bustan al-Basha district, it added. "This destruction of infrastructure essential to life leaves the besieged, resolute people, including all children and elderly men and women, without any health facilities offering life-saving treatment ... leaving them to die," said Aleppo's health directorate in a statement sent to Reuters late on Friday by an opposition official. Elizabeth Hoff, the WHO representative in Syria, said on Saturday that a U.N.-led group of aid agencies based over the border in Turkey "confirmed today that all hospitals in eastern Aleppo are out of service".
"SICKENING"
The monitoring group said some hospitals were still operating in besieged parts of Aleppo but said many residents were frightened to use them because of the heavy shelling. Medical sources, residents and rebels in eastern Aleppo say hospitals have been damaged by air strikes and helicopter barrel bombs in recent days, including direct hits on the buildings. "The United States again joins our partners ... in demanding the immediate cessation of these bombardments and calling on Russia to immediately deescalate violence and facilitate humanitarian aid and access for the Syrian people," Rice said in a statement. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson tweeted that reports of air strikes hitting civilians and hospitals in east Aleppo were "sickening" and called for a return to diplomacy.
However, with the United States awaiting the inauguration in late January of President-elect Donald Trump, who has been critical of Washington's Syria policy without laying out detailed plans himself, diplomatic efforts appear stalled. Staffan De Mistura, the special envoy of the U.N. secretary general, is likely to meet Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moalem in Damascus on Sunday after recent talks in Turkey and Iran, another diplomat said. "He will push on Aleppo, perhaps on a ceasefire, but on the political file there won't be anything until (U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon's successor Antonio) Guterres is in office, the diplomat said.
DENIAL
See also:
Syria conflict: Aleppo hospitals 'knocked out by bombardment'
Sat, 19 Nov 2016 - Days of strikes on Aleppo leave rebel areas virtually without a functioning hospital, reports say.
[/QUOTESome of the heaviest bombardment so far on Aleppo has left rebel-held parts of the Syrian city virtually without medical facilities, observers say. The World Health Organization says all makeshift hospitals there are out of service, after five days of air and artillery strikes by government forces. Other reports suggest some that hospitals are operational but people are too frightened to use them. A White House statement called the assault on hospitals "heinous". The Syria Civil Defence, a volunteer group also known as the White Helmets, said that 61 civilians had been killed in Saturday's air strikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
A Syrian civil defence volunteer carries an injured man
The government-led assault on the area resumed on Tuesday, after a three-week moratorium. Medics have in the past been able to bring field hospitals back into operation after strikes, but the lack of supplies is now so severe that this is becoming harder, Reuters news agency reports. The recent bombardment has left streets deserted, with people trying to shelter in their homes. The SOHR says the strikes have been so massive that residents are frightened to use medical facilities. Reuters quotes the WHO's representative in Syria, Elizabeth Hoff, as saying on Saturday that NGOs based over the border in Turkey "confirmed today that all hospitals in eastern Aleppo are out of service".
Food running out
On Friday the UN envoy for Syria's humanitarian adviser, Jan Egeland, said eastern Aleppo faced a "bleak moment" with supplies low and winter coming. "My understanding is that virtually all warehouses are now empty and tens of thousands of families are running out of food," he told Reuters. Also on Friday, a volunteer with the White Helmets Civil Defence force told agency AFP news agency that he had "never heard such intense artillery bombardments". His team had been unable to respond to an emergency call because "the shells are falling on the street", he said. Aleppo, once Syria's commercial and industrial hub, has been divided roughly in two since 2012, with the government controlling the west and rebels the east. On 22 September, two weeks after encircling the east and reimposing a siege on its estimated 275,000 residents, the army launched an all-out assault to take full control of the city with the help of Iranian-backed militias and the Russian air force.
By the end of October, the strikes had killed more than 700 civilians in the east, while rocket fire had left scores dead in the west, according to the UN. Russia says its air force is active in other parts of Syria, but not operating over Aleppo. A statement by White House national security adviser Susan Rice condemned what she called "heinous actions". "The Syrian regime and its allies, Russia in particular, bear responsibility for the immediate and long-term consequences these actions have caused in Syria and beyond," she said. UK International Development Secretary Priti Patel said the assault was part of "a systematic campaign to remove even the most basic of services left in the city" that left hundreds of thousands of people without access to healthcare.
Syria conflict: Aleppo hospitals 'knocked out by bombardment' - BBC News
Bashar and his thugs did it------don't tell capt blei
Must have been aliens from outer space - There were no airstrikes since October 20th.Bashar and his thugs did it------don't tell capt blei
Must have been aliens from outer space - There were no airstrikes since October 20th.Bashar and his thugs did it------don't tell capt blei
Oh, I have to correct myself. Eastern Aleppo is now one big airstrike. BOOM! BOOM! Pound that shit until its over!Must have been aliens from outer space - There were no airstrikes since October 20th.Bashar and his thugs did it------don't tell capt blei
right----none------nothing happening at all----all is well
The Islamists were bombing western Aleppo, under Syrian Government control, you idiot.