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Syrian regime launches Aleppo offensive

September 23, 2016 at 11:45 am

The Assad regime launched a new military offensive against opposition-held areas of eastern Aleppo last night, as diplomats failed last night to revive the fragile US-Russian brokered ceasefire which collapsed earlier this week.

The state-run SANA news agency broadcast the military’s announcement, saying: “The military operations command announces the start of operations in eastern districts of the city and calls on residents to stay away from the positions of terrorist groups,” using the regime’s term for anti-Assad fighters.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) claimed that “the most intense strikes in months” that began on Wednesday night had caused fires in the besieged districts of Bustan Al-Qasr and Al-Kalasseh in Aleppo, leading to civilian deaths.

Meanwhile, the Syrian regime and its Russian backers launched more than 100 airstrikes on the besieged neighbourhoods of eastern Aleppo, with Al Jazeera reporting that this has so far led to the deaths of 26 civilians. The aerial bombardment intensified in the early hours of this morning.

Death toll figures varied, with Reuters reporting that an opposition-held hospital had claimed 45 people were killed in the airstrikes.

“It’s as if the [Syrian and Russian] planes are trying to compensate for all the days that they didn’t drop bombs,” Ammar Al-Selmo, the head of the civil defence rescue service in eastern Aleppo, told Reuters.

Some of the munitions used by the Assad regime and Russia include cluster bombs and incendiary explosives.

Despite the intense aerial assault, a spokesman for the rebel Nour Al-Din Al-Zenki group said that government forces have not been able to make any advances in the city, although this could be due to the military campaign placing an emphasis on air operations at this early stage.

Talks to revive ceasefire collapse

Although air raids have been ongoing since Monday, the present large scale offensive came as the United States and Russia failed to come to terms regarding their Syria truce plan after a last-ditch diplomatic effort floundered in New York last night.

“It was a long, painful, difficult and disappointing meeting,” the UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura told reporters after the meeting of the International Syria Support Group.

Although details of the meeting were scarce, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s response to grounding planes was “not satisfying” with US Secretary of State John Kerry telling reporters that he was “frustrated”.

Since the collapse of the Russian-US brokered truce on Monday night after a suspected Russian airstrike on a UN aid convoy, fighting has resumed on all major fronts in Syria, now entering its sixth year of violent civil conflict.

Moscow and Washington announced the ceasefire plan earlier this month, but the agreement collapsed after the Syrian opposition accused the Assad regime of failing to withdraw from key areas to allow aid through, including the Castello Road.

According to the United Nations approximately 400,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war.