Cease-Fire Collapsing as Ground Battles Intensify
Pro-government forces backed by Russian air power clashed with rebels in Aleppo on Thursday, threatening to encircle opposition-held areas of the city in renewed fighting that appears set to ruin the tenuous cessation of hostilities agreed in late February.
The resurgence of fighting across the country, particularly around the northern city of Aleppo, has cast a cloud over the resumption of peace talks between the two sides this week in Geneva.
Government troops and allied militias launched an assault on the area around the Handarat camp, which overlooks an important access point into the rebel-held half of the city, Reuters reports.
The army and its allies have focused heavily on the Aleppo area since February, when they cut a vital rebel supply line to Turkey, but rebels still control the western half of the city and its outskirts.
But ground battles around the northern city have escalated in the past two weeks, particularly in its southern rural outskirts, where government-allied Hezbollah and other militias are battling with rebel forces, including the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front.
In addition to the assault on Aleppo, heavy government airstrikes targeted five towns and villages in Homs, killing one person and wounding several others.
Rebels in northern Aleppo faced a separate attack from the Islamic State group on Thursday, in which the extremist group seized a string of six opposition-held villages along the Turkish border and overran up to 10 camps for internally displaced people.
Thousands of civilians have fled the ISIS offensive toward the Turkish border, creating a new wave of refugees at the Bab al-Salameh border crossing, which has remained closed for most of the year.
U.N. Envoy ‘Frustrated’ With Lack of Humanitarian Access
United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura said Thursday he was frustrated with the lack of improvement in delivery of aid to besieged areas across the country, calling it a “wake-up call.”
The U.N. hoped the cessation of hostilities brokered by Russia and the United States would help to improve the humanitarian situation across the country, but as the truce steadily falls apart aid access is dropping off, Reuters reports.
“(There is) disappointment, frustration indeed, particularly in this period when we are expecting incremental improvements in reaching places which are besieged,” de Mistura said after meeting with members of the humanitarian taskforce.
There have only been four aid convoys in April and only 0.8 percent of people in besieged areas have been reached, according to statistics from the U.N. In March, 19 aid operations reached about 21 percent of the people trapped in those areas.
The increasing lack of access should be taken as a “wake-up call to make sure we don’t just sit passively during these meetings to acknowledge the fact that there are no improvements. We need improvements.”
Russia Calls for Closure of Turkey-Syria Border to Bar Extremists
Russia called Thursday for the closure of Turkey’s border with Syria to prevent the flow of weapons and militants to ISIS and the al-Nusra Front and to stop the export of oil, stolen artifacts and other goods, the Associated Press reports.
Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. Vitaly Churkin told members of the Security Council that Turkey is the main supplier of weapons and ammunition to ISIS militants and that nearly $1.9 million in explosives and industrial chemicals has been smuggled across the border to extremist groups.
Turkey’s mission to the U.N. said the allegations were “baseless.”
Churkin accused Turkey of “complacency or inaction” in allowing militants and weapons to cross into Syria, saying it also turned a blind eye to the export of oil and cultural artifacts.
In a recent interview with the Guardian, militants fighting with ISIS described Turkish soldiers manning the border as “friends,” describing how easy it was to cross back and forth over the porous border.
Recommended Reads
- The New Yorker: The Assad Files in Arabic
- Business Insider: ‘Relax, They Are Our Friends’: One Quote Shows why Turkey’s ISIS Problem Is Only Going to get Worse
- Voice of America: After the Syrian War: A Huge, Costly Cleanup
- The Washington Post: Al-Qaida Affiliate Faces Unusual Backlash From Fed-up Syrians
- The Intercept: Greek Fighter Jets Buzz Refugees Fleeing War in Syria
- Syria Comment: Harakat al-Hawiya al-Arabiya al-Druziya: Defending Druze Identity in Suwayda’
- Now Media: The Palestinians’ Hypocrisy on Syria
- Foreign Policy: Listening to the Stories of Syria’s Dead
Top image: Russian soldiers stand guard in the ancient city of Palmyra in the central Homs province on Thursday, April 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)