Air strikes hit Aleppo

‘Strikes on Syria army threaten US-Russia ceasefire plan’

BEIRUT: Four air strikes hit rebel-held parts of Syria’s Aleppo on Sunday, a monitor said, in the first raids on the battered city since a truce took effect.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several people were wounded but could not immediately give details about casualties or identify who carried out the strikes.

A halt to fighting around Aleppo and the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid were key components of the fragile truce, which began on Monday evening.

While the front lines had remained calm, civilians in the besieged eastern quarters had yet to receive promised food assistance.

The estimated 250,000 people in the eastern half of the city have been living under government siege since early September.

Rebel groups -- which have yet to formally sign on to the truce -- have regularly pledged to break the encirclement.

The head of Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after renouncing its ties to al-Qaeda, said late Saturday that opposition fighters would do all they could to end the encirclement.

Abu Mohamed al-Jolani said “neither we nor rebel groups will allow the siege of Aleppo to continue.”

More than 300,000 people have been killed since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests calling for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, Moscow stepped up its war of words with Washington on Sunday, saying air strikes by a US-led coalition on the Syrian army threatened the implementation of a US-Russian ceasefire plan for Syria and bordered on connivance with Islamic State.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Saturday that US jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group with contacts across Syria, cited a military source at Deir al-Zor airport as saying at least 90 Syrian soldiers had been killed.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a strongly worded statement that the United States’ position on the incident was “unconstructive and inarticulate”.

“The actions of coalition pilots - if they, as we hope, were not taken on an order from Washington - are on the boundary between criminal negligence and connivance with Islamic State terrorists,” the ministry said.

“We strongly urge Washington to exert the needed pressure on the illegal armed groups under its patronage to implement the ceasefire plan unconditionally.

Otherwise the implementation of the entire package of the US-Russian accords reached in Geneva on Sept 9 may be jeopardised.

“Russia has repeatedly called on the United States to push units of moderate Syrian opposition to separate from Islamic State and other “terrorist groups”.

The Foreign Ministry said Saturday’s incident was a result of Washington’s “stubborn refusal” to cooperate with Moscow in fighting Islamic State, the Nusra Front - now renamed Jabhat Fatah al Sham - and “other terrorist groups”.

The US military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

Washington further unnerved Moscow when its envoy to the United Nations abruptly left her seat as the Russian representative took the floor to condemn the air strikes at an emergency US Security Council meeting.

“We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State.

Now there can be no doubts about that,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in comments aired by state TV. The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Zakharova should be embarrassed by that claim.