Syrian government forces and their Russian allies launched an offensive on opposition-held areas of Aleppo on Friday, bombarding the city with dozens of airstrikes and threatening to launch a ground invasion.
The escalation was the clearest sign yet that efforts to restore a ceasefire that ended this week had failed and that the Syrian government had returned to trying suppress the rebel movement.
The bombing on Thursday night and Friday morning shook the ground and made streets impassible, according to anti-government activists in Aleppo. A video shot by a witness showed buildings burning after an airstrike on the Mwasalat neighborhood in the eastern part of the city.
“Can you hear it? The neighborhood is getting hit right now by missiles. We can hear the planes right now,” said Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist in Aleppo. “The planes are not leaving the sky: helicopters, barrel bombs, warplanes.”
Residents said the streets were deserted as the 250,000 people still trapped in the besieged opposition-held sector of Aleppo sought shelter from jets. The assault Friday on Aleppo left residents buried in the rubble, including a child in the al-Marja neighborhood of the city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which opposes the government and tracks the conflict from Britain, said at least 27 people had been killed in the overnight bombardment of the besieged city.
Doomsday
Ammar al-Salmo, head of Aleppo’s Civil Defence Force, a volunteer rescue squad, said that three of his group’s centres had been bombed and that some of their rescue vehicles had been knocked out.
“It is as if Russia and the regime used the truce only to maintain their weapons and plan on next targets,” said Mr Salmo from the city. “It is like doomsday today in Aleppo.”
The Syrian government announced the new offensive in its state-controlled news media Friday, quoting an unnamed Syrian military official who described the Aleppo operation as “comprehensive” and said it could continue for some time. The official said the operation would “include a ground offensive.”
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and industrial centre before the civil war began in 2011, has been divided for years between government and rebel forces. Before the partial ceasefire declared last week, rebels would often shell civilian neighborhoods in western Aleppo. And the government of Bashar Assad regularly bombed rebel-held eastern Aleppo, cutting civilians off from much-needed aid.
Despite the violence, most of the city‘s front lines have remained stable, with both sides lacking the manpower necessary to seize and hold significant new territory.
– (New York Times)