UN Envoy, Amnesty Back Russia-Regime Line Over Rebels’ Aleppo Offensive
MESOP NEWS – “USEFUL DOUBLE STANDARDS” – WHEN PUTIN BOMB’S TOGETHER WITH ASSAD : THE SYRIAN OPPOSITION DID IT !
November 01 – By Scott Lucas – eaworldview – Both UN envoy Staffan de Mistura and Amnesty International have supported the line of Russia and the Assad regime criticizing the rebel offensive in western Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. De Mistura said that he was “appalled and shocked” by rebel use of rockets during their offensive, which began Saturday in an effort to break the two-month Russian-regime siege of opposition areas:
“Those who argue that this is meant to relieve the siege of eastern Aleppo should be reminded that nothing justifies the use of disproportionate and indiscriminate weapons, including heavy ones, on civilian areas and it could amount to war crimes.”
The envoy made no reported comment about the Russian-regime siege of the opposition districts, with about 275,000 civilians, or about bombing and attacks by pro-Assad forces this autumn which have killed hundreds of civilians.
In a brief statement, Amnesty International called on rebels to avoid “indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas”.
“The goal of breaking the siege on eastern Aleppo does not give armed opposition groups a license to flout the rules of international humanitarian law by bombarding civilian neighborhoods in government-held areas without distinction,” said Samah Hadid, the Deputy Director of Campaigns at Amnesty’s Beirut regional office. Amnesty did not offer any evidence documenting rebel attacks. Instead, it cited the unconfirmed claims of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that up to 48 people, including 17 children, have been killed in civilian areas of regime-held districts.
The organization also quoted the Assad regime’s claims of a rebel “toxic gas” attack on the Hamdaniya and Dahiyat al-Assad areas.Amnesty did not mention local sources who said that it was the Syrian military’s helicopters who dropped chlorine canisters in barrel bombs, with the wind carrying the gases in to Hamdaniya. Nor did it explain why rebels would use gas on Dahiyat al-Assad, when they occupied most of the district on Saturday.
Both Moscow and the Assad regime have been pursuing a high-profile campaign to turn political pressure, which has building against the Russian-regime attacks on eastern Aleppo for more than a month, against the rebels. Russia has been denounced for complicity in the regime’s “war crimes” and for “barbarism” over the bombing that resumed on September 19 with the destruction of a UN aid convoy and continued with the intense airstrikes on opposition areas, leaving more than 600 civilians dead. However, since Russia declared a “humanitarian pause” on October 18, the Russian-regime strikes have only briefly resumed.
The Russian-regime effort paid out with headline success in mainstream media on Monday. Reuters led with the assertion of the Syrian military that 84 people, mostly women and children, had been killed in regime districts of Aleppo since Saturday. The agency also recycled the assertions of the SOHR, which offers no verification for its death toll.
Opposition: De Mistura “Double Standards” Over “War Crimes”
The opposition Syrian National Coalition accused De Mistura of double standards in his remarks about possible “war crimes”.
The Coalition’s Secretary-General, Abdul Ilah Fahd said the envoy had been silent over the Russian-regime attacks in east Aleppo for almost three months, including the use of banned weapons such as white phosphorus, cluster munitions, and bunker-buster bombs.
Fahd added that De Mistura has also ignored the regime’s mass forced displacement of civilians, following capitulations to the “surrender or starve” sieges of the Syrian military and its foreign allies: Some UN officials continue to show bias in favor of the Assad regime and its Russian allies allowing their crimes in Syria to go unpunished. They also criticize the Free Syrian Army and rebel fighters to cover up crimes by the Assad regime and its allies.
Fighting Eases on Monday
The rebel offensive eased on Monday, in an apparent effort to regroup after initial advances and subsequent resistance by pro-Assad foreign militias and elements of the Syrian army.There was little movement on the ground. Instead, rebels shelled the 3000 Housing complex, one of their targets in western Aleppo.Rebels hold almost all of the neighboring 1070 Housing complex. They also continue to occupy most of the Dahiyat al-Assad suburb, which they captured on Saturday.
The offensive is trying to break through the Russian-regime siege which was re-imposed in late August with victories in the Ramouseh area, just to the south of the current frontlines.