Regime Barrel Bombs Kill 31 People in Aleppo

The government’s aerial siege of Aleppo continues, as the AFP reports that helicopters dropped barrel bombs on opposition-held districts of the city on Monday, killing at least 31 people including several children.

The strikes hit the Sukkari and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods. Two bombs hit Sukkari minutes apart, with the second hitting rescuers who had arrived on the scene after the first. The double bombing has become common practice for regime pilots.

“We were sleeping safely when the first barrel dropped around midnight,” resident Abu Mohammad told the wire. “And when people came to the rescue, a second barrel dropped, so all those people who were on the site were dead. We don’t have military bases in our area. All people here are civilians. Why is he (President Bashar al-Assad) attacking us?”

Also in Aleppo, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen became the first foreign journalist to reach the Western government-held parts of the city.

The way into Aleppo “is past a ruined housing estate of six- to eight-story blocks,” he writes. “Shells have punched great holes in the buildings. Many have collapsed in on themselves, and the narrow alleys around them are blocked with rubble. People still live in parts of the estate. West Aleppo is full of people, many of whom have lost their original homes because of the war. Terrible damage has also been inflicted on east Aleppo by the Syrian army’s heavy weapons.”

Before taking Bowen for a tour of west Aleppo, Mohammed Waheed Akad, the provincial governor, showed off a collection of projectiles he said had been fired at his building. There are steel blinds on his office windows.

“These indiscriminate shells are launched at civilians in Aleppo,” he told Bowen. “They shout, ‘God is great,’ as they launch them, but God and Islam have nothing to do with this brutality.”

U.N. Says Syrian Government Making Aid Delivery More Difficult

Assad’s government is making it more difficult to deliver humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians. “What we are now being told is that everything has to be centralized through Damascus,” Valerie Amos, the U.N.’s chief aid coordinator, said Monday.

The New York Times quotes Amos as saying that delivering aid “has actually become more difficult, not easier,” since June 3, when Assad claimed re-election with 90 percent of the popular vote. Three years into the conflict, estimates say 9.3 million people in Syria need aid, with 241,000 cut off from relief.

“Ms. Amos said that until recently, international aid agencies were able to negotiate access for aid convoys directly with provincial governors in Syria,” the paper reports. “The United Nations was able to deliver food to 4.1 million Syrians in March, she said, but only 3.2 million in May.

“The Security Council unanimously passed a resolution in February demanding that Syria allow access for humanitarian aid, but the resolution did not provide for enforcement under Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter, which would have allowed military action. Ms. Amos said the resolution had ‘little effect.’”

Homs Detainees Sent to Serve in Syrian Army

AFP reports that 118 men from Homs, who turned themselves in after escaping an army siege, have been sent to perform their mandatory military service with the Syrian army.

Homs governor Talal al-Barazi told the wire that the men, who had been held at the city’s al-Andalus school, had been “freed” under a government amnesty announced last week and would now be sent to the army to begin – or finish – their service.

“Around half of them were defectors from the army, and the other half were civilians who had not yet performed their military service,” he said. “Those who defected from the army [and joined the armed rebellion] will return to the military. Those among them who were civilians and had failed to perform their military service are now being dealt with by the concerned military authorities and will also perform their military service.”

Suggested Reads from Our Editorial Team

Guardian: Up to 400 British Citizens May be Fighting in Syria, Says William Hague

The New Yorker: Dexter Filkins: The Iraq- Syria Connection

BBC: The Suffering Civilians of West Aleppo

Vox: How ISIS is Exploiting the Economies of Syria’s Civil War