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Syrians to halt combat operations in Aleppo
GENEVA/BEIRUT: Syria’s Army on Thursday halted its attacks in Aleppo to allow trapped civilians to be evacuated, Russia’s foreign minister announced, after advancing regime forces cornered opposition fighters in the city.“I can tell you that today combat operations by the Syrian Army have been halted in eastern Aleppo because there is a large operation underway to evacuate civilians,” said Sergei Lavrov, who held talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry in the German city of Hamburg. “There is going to be a column of 8,000 evacuees” traveling five km, added Lavrov, attending a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Lavrov’s announcement was “an indication that something positive could happen.” There was no immediate reaction from Damascus, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, confirmed that the fighting had eased. Airstrikes halted and artillery fire was far less intense, according to the AFP correspondent in east Aleppo. More than 800 people have been killed and 3,000-3,500 wounded in besieged eastern Aleppo in the past 26 days, while the remaining trapped civilians await an effective death sentence, the president of the Aleppo local council said on Thursday. “Today 150,000 people are threatened with extermination. We are calling for a halt to the bombing and guarantees of safe passage of all,” Brita Haji Hassan said during a trip to Geneva, where he will meet UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura on Monday. Tawfik Chamaa, a representative of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations (UOSSM), said 1,500 people needed medical evacuation, but any evacuation should have international observers to prevent them being “executed or diverted on the way to hospital.” Separately, Britain’s head of foreign intelligence service MI6 said on Thursday his country faces an “unprecedented” terror threat that will not subside until the Syrian civil war ends. In a rare speech for an intelligence chief, Alex Younger said British authorities had foiled 12 terrorist plots since June 2013 and warned that the “murderously efficient” Daesh was still plotting attacks from Syria, despite recent military reverses. “The plight of the Syrians continues to worsen. I cannot say with any certainty what the next year will bring,” Younger told journalists in his first public comments since taking up the post of “C” in 2014. “But what I do know is this — we cannot be safe from the threats that emanate from that land unless the civil war is brought to an end. “We need to take the fight to the enemy, penetrating terrorist organizations upstream,” he added. “By that I mean as close to the source as possible.” Younger criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for propping up Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad and warned that “hybrid warfare,” incorporating cyber-attacks and propaganda, was an “increasingly dangerous phenomenon” that posed a “fundamental threat” to Western democracies Posted by: badanov 2016-12-09 |
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