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Syrian forces fingered for executions in Aleppo
[Al Arabiya] Syrian regime forces and sectarian militias carried out on Monday nearly two hundred executions in Aleppo, which included women and children, according to eyewitnesses from within the city, Al Arabiya News Channel reported.

A firing squad from Bashar al-Assad’s forces and militiamen also executed medical staff.

According to activists on the ground, Hezbollah militia carried out most of the mass executions in the war-torn city.

Sources confirmed to Al Arabiya that militias loyal to the regime had also burned nine children and four women.

Meanwhile, the White Helmets in Aleppo reported more than 90 bodies under the rubble that had not been recovered.

Civilian Evacuation
The legal adviser of the Free Syrian Army, Osama Abu Zayd, appealed to the international community to help provide assistance for the evacuation of civilians and guarantee their freedom and safety, stressing that the FSA was willing to exit if there were international guarantees for them.

Zayd stressed that the Syrian regime forces are forcing those fleeing from Aleppo to fight on their side.

UN ‘alarmed’
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is alarmed by reports of atrocities against “a large number” of civilians, including women and children, in recent hours in the Syrian city of Aleppo, his spokesman said Monday.

“While stressing that the United Nations is not able to independently verify these reports, the secretary-general is conveying his grave concern to the relevant parties,” said spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Ban has asked his envoy Staffan de Mistura to follow up.

“The United Nations underlines the obligation of all parties on the ground to protect civilians and abide by international humanitarian and human rights law,” Dujarric said.

“This is particularly the responsibility of the Syrian government and its allies,” notably Russia and Iran, he added.

Assad Aleppo take over
Syria’s army and its allies have taken full control of all Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat in the city, a Syrian military source said on Tuesday.

On Monday rebel defenses collapsed, leading to a broad army advance across more than half of the remaining insurgent pocket in Aleppo and a retreat of opposition fighters to a few districts on the west bank of the city’s river.

Recapturing the entire rebel pocket of Aleppo will constitute the biggest battlefield victory yet for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his military coalition of Russia’s air force, Iran and Shiite militias.

For rebels, it will mark a sobering loss and leave them without a significant presence in any of Syria’s main cities. They still hold much of the countryside west of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, also in northwest Syria.

Soddy condemn Syrian government Aleppo progrom
The upside for the Syrian government is they think they have a good chance of winning the elections in Aleppo
[Asharq Al-Awsat] Saudi Arabia’s top religious body on Tuesday condemned what it said were “criminal massacres” by the Syrian regime against civilians in Aleppo and called on the Islamic world to help save fellow Muslims.

State news agency SPA said the secretariat appealed to the Muslim world “to rise in support of its causes and stand with all its energy for its rights”. Qatar earlier called for an emergency Arab League meeting to discuss the situation in Aleppo, Qatar-based Al Jazeera television reported.

The appeal came after the United Nations said it had reports that Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters had summarily shot dead 82 civilians in recaptured Aleppo districts, and a military source said the last rebel pocket could fall “at any moment”.

“The criminal Syrian regime has committed the ugliest crimes in a way unknown in modern history, where the bodies of the dead fill the streets and under the rubble of destroyed buildings,” the secretariat of the Council of Senior Scholars said in a statement carried by SPA.

“The savage bombardment harvests lives everywhere, including in hospitals and houses of worship, while the international community is helpless or ineffective to take any decision to deter this criminal machine,” it added.
Posted by: badanov 2016-12-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=475725