Tag Archives: Aleppo

Russia, Syria, United Nations, United States

Aleppo is on the brink of annihilation…

SYRIA

Intro: The Syrian government has demonstrated time and again how little it cares for international humanitarian laws

Aleppo is now more at a critical juncture that it has ever been since the start of Syria’s internecine civil war five years ago. Aleppo’s worsening situation comes at a bad moment when western attention has been turned sharply on terrorism in Europe and the impending US presidential election. Syria, however, is now demanding immediate attention too. What has been happening recently in Aleppo could be a decisive turning point in the conflict; any diplomatic hopes of whatever remain in negotiating a solution is fast deteriorating. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people are trapped in Aleppo’s eastern neighbourhoods, which are now entirely surrounded by Syrian government forces of Bashar al-Assad.  These troops are being assisted in their offensive by Russian air power and Iranian-controlled militias. Alarmingly, no food, no medical aid, nor any humanitarian assistance has been able to reach the population of Aleppo’s rebel-held territory for several weeks, because of the magnitude and intensity of the ongoing military onslaught.

Aleppo is of historical significance. It was once Syria’s second largest city, and it has become one of the key symbols of rebel resistance to the Assad regime since 2012. It has been a long-held objective of government forces to crush and obliterate Aleppo, and, if nothing is done to stop Assad’s forces advancing such a disaster seems imminent. That would not just be a defeat for the rebels, many of whom which have received western support, but perhaps an irreversible defeat for the uprising. Aleppo is staring into the abyss with the prospect of a new, humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented proportions unfurling in Syria.

Aleppo

Map depicting Aleppo in Syria and surrounding countries.

With Aleppo encircled, the tragedy is being exasperated following the tightening of the knot in recent days by government forces whose aim has been to starve or empty it. Aleppo has been so ruthlessly shelled and bombed that it has become an inferno for those desperate people struggling among the ruins. There are hardly any doctors left in the city, and the last remaining hospital has been destroyed. UN agencies say food stocks are barely sufficient to last for more than three weeks.

The Syrian government and its Russian allies have resorted to a tactic of siege and starvation that has been used previously in Syria, but they are now doing it on a much larger and openly deliberate and provocative way. Their announcement of “humanitarian corridors” for civilians and rebels who would want to flee the area must be exposed as a cynical ruse. No one should be surprised that Aleppo’s population has not rushed towards these exit corridors, which have not in any case materialised on the ground. The Syrian government has demonstrated time and again how little it cares for international humanitarian laws. Assad’s machine of repression makes no distinction whatsoever between armed combatants and civilians. Tens of thousands of civilians have died while being held in detention centres. The announcement by Syrian and Russian officials without consulting or even warning UN agencies in advance is implicit proof that they want no external witnesses to their misdeeds.

Aleppo is on the brink of annihilation and the siege must be urgently lifted. International pressure is void of any credibility and its responses to a dire and stricken situation has been pitifully pathetic. It must put proper pressure on Russia to force Syrian troops to retreat, so that lives can be saved. The fate of Aleppo’s inhabitants, however, may now depend to a large degree on how global public opinion can now be mobilised. Saving Aleppo from utter destruction is not only a humanitarian imperative, but also central to any thin chance of a settlement in Syria ever being salvaged.

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Britain, Syria, United Nations, United States

The Syrian tinderbox as the West considers sending arms to the rebels…

PRESIDENT Barack Obama is considering arming Syrian rebels in a bid to end a civil war that is now into its third year.

There are growing concerns that President Bashar al-Assad may be gaining the upper hand in the conflict that has claimed at least 80,000 lives and displaced millions more, as government forces recently captured the strategic key town of Qusair.

Mr Assad’s forces are said to be preparing for an assault on the city of Aleppo.

A decision to approve military aid for Syria’s opposition forces could come within the next few days. US Secretary of State, John Kerry, postponed a Middle East trip to attend a Syrian summit in Washington instead.

Opposition leaders in Syria have warned the White House their rebellion could soon face devastating losses without greater support from the United States.

Syria’s precarious position in the heart of the Middle East makes the conflict extremely unpredictable.

The major stumbling block of supplying arms to rebels remains the fear that Al-Qaeda linked and other extremists fighting alongside anti-Assad militias could end up with the weapons.

Washington is still examining evidence that Assad’s forces may have used chemical weapons against the rebels – something Mr Obama has warned Assad would cross a ‘red line’ in provoking swift US military intervention.

Britain and France claim they already have substantive evidence that Assad’s forces have used low levels of the deadly nerve gas sarin in several attacks on rebels, which they have presented to the UN.

OPINION

The threat to world peace and prosperity posed by the bloody civil war in Syria is impossible to exaggerate. The shock-waves from the conflict between rival Islamic factions are spreading far beyond the country itself. The entire region is on the brink of being destabilised.

In Iraq, for example, supposedly rescued from tyranny by Allied forces in the war that ‘ended’ with American troops being withdrawn in December 2011, some 2,000 violent deaths have been recorded in the past two months alone.

In Turkey, Lebanon and Jordon, tensions are rising as hundreds of thousands of displaced refugees pour across the borders in pursuit of safe haven and refuge. Many thousands are in need of food and medical attention. The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) has largely been prevented from attending the sick and dying as Assad has launched wave after wave of attacks on civilians on routes that should have been safeguarded as humanitarian corridors.

On the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel, after a 40-year ceasefire monitored by the United Nations, Austrian peacekeepers are pulling out as the area braces itself in becoming a war zone again.

In Syria, President Assad, far from being defeated, is being supported with Russian arms along with Hezbollah, the fanatically anti-Israeli terrorist group based in Lebanon.

Yet, this is the powder-keg into which President Obama is said to be on the verge of igniting a bigger flame. A decision is imminent on whether to send American arms to the beleaguered opposition forces.

Leaving aside the danger that Iran will retaliate by targeting Israel or US/UK interests in the region, the fact remains that the Syrian rebels (just like their counterparts in Libya two years ago), are riddled with factions hostile to the West – including Al-Qaeda.

Mr Obama, and the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, speak glibly of arming only ‘vetted, moderate rebel units’. The inherent risks of doing so should not be played down with an awareness that these weapons could end up in the hands of the perpetrators of 9/11.

No one can know the way to peace in Syria, the tense geopolitical situation in the region is a cocktail of extremism and hatred. If the United States and Britain have learned anything from the West’s recent past interventions in the Middle East, they must surely realise that ramping up the violence in Syria comes with grave dangers.

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