Another catastrophic civilian toll has emerged from the Syrian War on Monday, when warplanes carried out three separate strikes against the marketplace in the town of Atareb, in Aleppo Province, killing at least 53 people.
It’s unclear who carried out the strikes, though pro-rebel media attributed the strikes to three Russian warplanes. The area is within a de-escalation zone, which is meant to make it immune to targeting, though it belongs to al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which is not part of the ceasefire which created such zones.
The attacks destroyed the market more or less entirely, destroying over 100 shops, and leading to a day-long effort by rescue workers to try to recover survivors from the wreckage. Exactly how many are wounded is still unclear.
Why the market was targeted remains unclear, and of course there have been no statements, since no one has taken credit for the airstrikes, leaving which nation’s air force conducted the strikes a matter of speculation.
The US tends to use fewer but more expensive bombs. The Syrians tend to miss a lot, spread things everywhere. So this looks Russian.
A sickening tragedy. Those responsible should hang.
Secret airstrikes?
Its fascinating how the west now yells, cries and screams about Al-Qaeda being bombed.
Reports the SOHR, the West’s favorite anti-Assad NGO.
So now they are saying ‘marketplace’, what’s the matter, did they get tired of saying ‘bakery’?
Same as Bosnia. Ahead of every NATO meeting, or other “crisis” body, a strike at well known market was carried out sbd Bosnian Serbs were immediately blamed. Same with the attack on the bread line. It seems that SOMEBODY is still arming and advising Al-Qaeda as welll as ISIS. US has not engaged ISIS unless it was to allow Kurds to occupy the territory.
There were many fights lately between Al-Nusra and their until recently alies — Al-Zinki group. The most likely explanation is an artillery strike, not airstrike. And either party could have done it and blame somebody else. Of course, it will be easy to identify the trajectory of the shells, but of course, it wont’t happen — or eill be rigged. US refused to investigate in the immediste aftermath of a chemical attack even though every access was svailable — to the base, to planes, etc. Now that AlQaeda is involved nobody will own them. As for deconflict zones —