Syrian Doctor Draws Attention to Ongoing Barrel Bomb Attacks on Civilians

A Syrian surgeon operating in Aleppo, a city split between armed opposition and government forces, penned an op-ed for the New York Times about the ongoing destruction of barrel bombs and the toll they have taken on his patients and country, “which lies in ruins,” he said.

While the world’s attention is focused on the violence perpetrated by the Islamic State inside Syria, the daily terror of barrel bombs remains the gravest threat to civilians, he adds, calling on the international community and the U.S. to look beyond addressing the Islamic State alone.

“We are living through a hurricane of barrel bombs dropped by his [President Bashar al-Assad’s] regime. These are old oil barrels, filled with up to a ton of explosives, nails, gasoline and even chlorine or other chemical agents. Dropped from a high altitude over heavily populated areas, they are crude, ruthless and indiscriminate.”

Human Rights Watch has documented more than 1,000 barrel bomb impact sites in Aleppo since a resolution was passed in the U.N. Security Council calling for an end to their use in populated areas. According to a report by Amnesty International, 8,000 civilians have been killed in indiscriminate bombings and attacks over the course of the year.

“And yet the helicopters come. The chop-chop-chop of their blades causes panic every time. And the barrel bombs continue to rain down, on our homes, on our schools and on our hospitals, often at a rate as high as 50 per day,” the doctor adds.

Human rights groups say that systematic and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities have become the norm inside Syria, where the healthcare system has all but collapsed.

Physicians for Human Rights, an advocacy group, published a report earlier this year documenting the deaths of 526 medical personnel, “43 percent of whom were specifically targeted” by their killers. The report says that 99 percent of the killings were committed by government forces.

Islamic State Syria–Iraq Communication and Supply Line Severed

Forces battling the Islamic State have severed key communication and supply lines used by the militants between Syria and Iraq following a two-week operation, AFP reports, citing the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State.

“Backed by airstrikes, the forces ‘overcame ISIL (IS) resistance’ in northeastern Syria near the strategic town of Tal Hamis – once an IS stronghold – and ‘denied the terrorist group its freedom of maneuver in the area,’” the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement.

“Anti-ISIL forces were able to seize critical portions of route 47 in Syria, a key ISIL communications and supply line leading into Iraq,” according to the statement.

Several ISIS weapons systems and fighting positions were destroyed in the attacks.

“The determination of these anti-ISIL forces and our precision airstrikes enabled us to deny Daesh [ISIS] this key terrain in Syria,” Combined Joint Task Force commander Lieutenant General James Terry said in a statement.

ISIS has launched major offensives in northeastern Syria over the past two weeks, attacking Christian villages along the Khabur River in Hassakeh province, a strategic gateway that would help the Islamic State consolidate the territory it holds in Iraq and Syria.

The attacks come just a week after the group kidnapped more than 220 Assyrian Christians from the same area. Kurdish forces backed by their local allies are at the forefront of the battle against the militant group, successfully taking Tal Hamis from the group on February 25. However, fighting has continued in the area.

Syria’s Assad Looks Likely to Stay

Reuters reports on the weakening resolve of Western allies demanding the departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as much of their attention has instead switched to fighting the Islamic State. “While the United States and his Arab enemies bomb the jihadists in the north and east, Assad and his allies have launched a major offensive against mainstream rebels and Islamists in an area of greater importance to them, the southern border zone near Israel and Jordan. In Damascus, observers close to the government see this as the start of a phase that will end the conflict on Assad’s terms,” Reuters states. “Assad seems more likely to survive the Syrian crisis than at any point since it began four years ago,” the news agency adds.

Despite Western government hopes that a slump in oil prices would force Iran, a longtime ally of the Syrian regime, to discontinue to prop up the devastated Syrian economy, Iran has persisted in resupplying the Assad regime with the means to continue its offensives against opposition forces, particularly in the south of Syria.

Western officials have tried to prop up mainstream opposition through a “train and equip” program. However, the scale and focus of the program will not change the power balance quickly, if at all, Reuters reports.

“Assad appears to be betting that the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State will force Washington to engage with him, particularly as Iraqi forces prepare to take back Mosul in northern Iraq.”

Recommended Reads

• The Guardian: Australian Extremist Abdul Salam Mahmoud Killed in Syria – Reports
• The Guardian: Missing Girls Lured by ISIS Won’t Face Terrorism Charges, Says Met Chief
• Associated Press: A Look at Key Events in Syria Since March 2011
• Associated Press: AP Interview: Syria Magnate Denies Buying Islamic State Oil
• Agence France-Presse: IS Syria–Iraq Communication Lines Smashed: Coalition
• The New York Times: The Carnage of Barrel Bombs in Syria
• BBC: Emergency Plan to Teach Syria’s Traumatized Young Refugees
• Agence France-Presse: China Says IS Fighters Back from Syria Caught in Xinjiang
• NPR: Brutal Acts by ISIS Eclipse Reports of Violence by Syria’s Assad Regime
• The Daily Star: Lebanese ISIS Recruits Receiving Training in Syria
• LA Times: Fall of U.S.-Backed Syrian Groups Casts Doubt on Plan to Arm Moderates

Photo Courtesy of AP Images