Syrian Army Offensive in Aleppo Continues

The battle for Syria’s largest city intensified over the weekend as the Syrian army continued its assault on Aleppo, according to CNN.

Hundreds of airstrikes have been reported in and around the city since the collapse of the cease-fire late last week. Activist groups said that at least 85 people were killed and around 300 more wounded during airstrikes on Sunday.

Rebel groups in the area blame Russia, who joined the war last year to help prop up the Syrian army, for most of the airstrikes in the city, Reuters reported.

Syrian ground troops also participated in the offensive, gaining temporary control of the Handarat Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of the city before rebel forces launched a counterattack.

At least 250,000 civilians live in the eastern, rebel-held area of the city. The Syrian military reportedly hopes to seize the area within a week. To achieve this goal so quickly would necessitate completely destroying the area in “such a monstrous atrocity that it would resonate for generations,” a Western diplomat told Reuters.

Intense fighting has also been reported in Hama province, west-central Syria, where opposition fighters, including the jihadist group Jund al-Aqsa, captured two villages.

United Nations Security Council Convenes Emergency Meeting over Aleppo

The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the situation in Aleppo, according to the Associated Press.

The meeting ended without a plan for action because of disagreements between Russia and Western members of the Security Council who support different sides in the conflict.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said the renewed offensive in Aleppo was one of the worst since the start of the war nearly six years ago. The United States, Britain and France all blamed Russia, which backs President Bashar al-Assad’s government. Representatives of the three Western powers walked out of the meeting when Bashar Ja’afari, Syria’s ambassador to the U.N., was called to speak.

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., accused Russia of barbarism in its bombing of Aleppo and called the offensive “apocalyptic.” Vitaly Churkin, Power’s Russian counterpart, said that peace in Syria would be nearly impossible after the failure of the last cease-fire.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, speaking with BBC1, said that Russia’s bombings in Syria could amount to war crimes. He acknowledged that the Western powers had no effective way to restrain Russia or Syria, according to the Guardian.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon echoed Johnson’s statement, saying that indiscriminate bombings in densely populated areas violated international law.

Turkey Asks to Join Fight for Raqqa

On Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey wants to join the United States in the fight to recapture Raqqa, the Syrian stronghold of the so-called Islamic State group, according to Reuters.

Erdogan said that the Turks would join the military action only if Kurdish rebel forces were excluded from the operation. Turkey sees them as an offshoot of its own Kurdish group, the PKK, which it deems a terrorist organization.

Until the recent military successes by the U.S.-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, Turkey had focused more on ousting President Bashar al-Assad than combating ISIS. However, the Turkish military pushed into northern Syria last month in an operation aimed at expelling jihadist militants from the border area.

Late last week, Erdogan accused the U.S. of supplying weapons to Kurdish militias operating in Syria, but acknowledged on Sunday that joining the military operation in Raqqa was an “important” step.

RECOMMENDED READS:

• Foreign Policy: How Failed Peace Talks in Syria Help Al Qaeda
• The New York Times: ‘From Paradise to Hell’: How an Aid Convoy in Syria Was Blown Apart
• The Atlantic: The Prospect of a Cease-Fire in Syria Is in Tatters
• The Huffington Post: Don’t Play Politics With Syrian Christians
• The National: Syria’s Apocalypse on the Streets of Aleppo