„Moving in for the kill, the Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian backers have taken control of the last supply route into rebel-held Aleppo in a combined air and ground campaign that has left well over 100 dead. It was a major setback for the Syrian opposition, which has tenaciously held the eastern districts of Syria’s most populous city in the face of a far better armed government. Defeat in Aleppo would devastate the five-year-old rebellion, but it is not clear how they can lift the siege in the absence of foreign help. (…)
At least 76 people were killed by Russian and Syrian aircraft attacks on Aleppo and nearby towns, and barrel bombs dropped on residential areas from Syrian helicopters in the three days of what the Syrian government declared to be a “regime of calm.” Another 70 were killed Monday, according to the Local Coordination Committee, a civilian body which operates in rebel-held zones. Doctors at the Aleppo siege medical center said they couldn’t determine the casualty toll on the road Sunday, because so many wounded or dead were pinned in their vehicles, unable to escape or be recovered because of sniper fire. (…)
The Syrian political opposition sounded its alarm Tuesday over the siege of Aleppo and big regime advances on the ground in Darayya, a town just outside Damascus, urging the UN Security Council to hold an emergency session to demand compliance with its unanimous Resolution 2254 of last December, which called for a cease-fire, an end to all sieges, free transit for all humanitarian supplies and the release of political detainees. But the opposition sounded their outcry fully aware no one was listening. ‚The Syrian people are not shocked at all with what the regime has been doing,‘ Anas Alabdah, the president of the Opposition Coalition, said here. ‚We are shocked by the international reaction – of silence.‘“
(Roy Gutman: „Assad Cuts the Last Road to Aleppo and Moves in for the Kill“)
