Aleppo hit by air strikes and shelling as
evacuation stalls
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[December 14, 2016]
By Laila Bassam, Tom Perry and Lisa Barrington
ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - The
planned evacuation of rebel districts of Aleppo stalled on Wednesday as
air strikes and heavy shelling hit the city and Iran was said to have
imposed new conditions on the deal.
Iran, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's main backers in the
battle that has all but ended four years of rebel resistance in the
city, wanted a simultaneous evacuation of wounded from two villages,
Foua and Kefraya, that are besieged by rebel fighters, according to
rebel and U.N. sources.
Rebel groups said that was just an excuse to hold up the evacuation from
a shrunken insurgent enclave shattered by a powerful government
offensive. A pro-opposition TV station said the operation could now be
delayed until Thursday.
A ceasefire brokered on Tuesday by Russia, Assad's most powerful ally,
and Turkey was intended to end years of fighting in the city, giving the
Syrian leader his biggest victory in more than five years of war.
But air strikes, shelling and gunfire erupted on Wednesday and Turkey
accused government forces of breaking the truce. Syrian state television
said rebel shelling had killed six people.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said however that rebel
resistance was likely to end in the next two or three days.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip
Erdogan will discuss Aleppo later on Wednesday, the Kremlin was quoted
as saying.
Officials in the military alliance backing Assad could not be reached
immediately for comment on why the evacuation, expected to start in the
early hours of Wednesday, had stalled.
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Nobody had left by dawn under the plan, according to a Reuters witness
waiting at the departure point, where 20 buses stood with engines
running but showed no sign of moving into rebel districts.
People in eastern Aleppo packed their bags and burned personal
belongings, fearing looting by the Syrian army and its Iranian-backed
militia allies.
In what appeared to be a separate development from the planned
evacuation, the Russian defence ministry said 6,000 civilians and 366
fighters had left rebel-held districts over the past 24 hours.
A total of 15,000 people, including 4,000 rebel fighters, wanted to
leave Aleppo, according to a media unit run by the Syrian government's
ally Hezbollah.
RAPID ADVANCES
The evacuation plan was the culmination of two weeks of rapid advances
by the Syrian army and its allies that drove insurgents back into an
ever-smaller pocket of the city under intense air strikes and artillery
fire.
By taking full control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his
military coalition, aided by Russia's air force and an array of Shi'ite
militias from across the region.
Rebels groups have been supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf
monarchies, but the support they have enjoyed has fallen far short of
the direct military backing given to Assad by Russia and Iran.
Russia's decision to deploy its air force to Syria 18 months ago turned
the war in Assad's favor after rebel advances across western Syria. In
addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus
this year.
The government and its allies have focused the bulk of their firepower
on fighting rebels in western Syria rather than Islamic State, which
this week managed to take back the ancient city of Palmyra, once again
illustrating the challenge Assad faces reestablishing control over all
Syria.
Russia regards the fall of Aleppo as a major victory against terrorists,
as it and Assad characterize all the rebel groups, both Islamist and
nationalist, fighting to oust him.
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![](../images/121416pics/news_m21.jpg)
A man pushes a woman on a cart as they flee deeper with others into
the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria. REUTERS/Abdalrhman
Ismail
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But at the United Nations, the United States said the violence in
the city, besieged and bombarded for months, represented "modern
evil".
The once-flourishing economic center with its renowned ancient sites
has been pulverized during the war, which has killed hundreds of
thousands of people, created the world's worst refugee crisis and
allowed the rise of Islamic State.
As the battle for Aleppo unfolded, global concern has risen over the
plight of the 250,000 civilians who were thought to remain in its
rebel-held eastern sector before the sudden army advance began at
the end of November.
Tens of thousands of them fled to parts of the city held by the
government or by a Kurdish militia, and tens of thousands more
retreated further into the rebel enclave as it rapidly shrank under
the army's lightning advance.
The rout of rebels in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of terrified
civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United
Nations said was a "complete meltdown of humanity". There were food
and water shortages in rebel areas, with all hospitals closed.
"SHOT IN THEIR HOMES"
On Tuesday, the United Nations voiced deep concern about reports it
had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily
shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east Aleppo districts. It
accused them of "slaughter".
"The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to
flee and shot in their homes," said Rupert Colville, a U.N.
spokesman. "There could be many more."
The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among
those captured, and Russia said on Tuesday rebels had "kept over
100,000 people in east Aleppo as human shields".
Fear stalked the city's streets. Some survivors trudged in the rain
past dead bodies to the government-held west or the few districts
still in rebel hands. Others stayed in their homes and awaited the
Syrian army's arrival.
For all of them, fear of arrest, conscription or summary execution
added to the daily terror of bombardment.
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"People are saying the troops have lists of families of fighters and
are asking them if they had sons with the terrorists. (They are)
then either left or shot and left to die," said Abu Malek al-Shamali
in Seif al-Dawla, one of the last rebel-held districts.
Terrible conditions were described by city residents.
Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies
lay in the streets. "There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan
al-Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.
(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Aleppo and Tom Perry, John Davison and
Lisa Barrington in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut;
Editing by Peter Millership, Paul Tait and Giles Elgood)
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