A coalition of rebels including al-Qaeda’s-Nusra Front and the Free Syrian Army are continuing their offensive against the government-held western half of Aleppo. The UN harshly criticized them for their use of “indiscriminate” weapons, warning it could amount to war crimes.
Perhaps the biggest issue, though as-yet-unproven, is reports that the rebels have begun to use chlorine-filled shells in their attacks. Syrian media reported 35 civilians were suffering from effects of the toxic gas, though the rebels denied using them.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported at least 21 people killed over the weekend, amid heavy fighting around western Aleppo. The offensive began Friday, with the Nusra-led rebels trying to end a siege of their eastern half of the city.
This has been a recurring situation in Aleppo since it boiled down to just the military and this rebel faction, with both sides having repeatedly launched offensives and counter-offensives over the last several months, trading sieges and strikes against one anothers’ neighborhoods.
This has resulted in heavy casualties for the civilians stuck in the city, facing regular sieges that they are rarely as able to survive as the combatants, and taking the brunt of the rockets, airstrikes, and artillery attacks. The addition of chemical weapons, even primitive ones, threaten to make the matter far worse.
Where is the US and it’s lapdog media? Suddenly they have nothing to say.
especially as there are reports of white Phosphorous being used by US allied forces in Iraq, and it isn’t being used as a smoke screen!
Al-Qaeda can do whatever it wants. It has a blanket protection, and got an elevated status of victim by UN Human Rights Commission. The point seems to be that the politicians and the media are in a “must win” mode. They will wiggle, and lie, they will twist and moan, cry crocodile tears over whatever they can think off. I am surprised that so far they have not included the Al-Qaeda kindness towards the stray cats — to get the “uhs” and “ahs” of the public. I will not count on them to give up the lie. They will just make up bigger lies. The shelling of West Aleppo has been going on now for a while — with no reaction. Now, Al-Qaeda is deliberately attacking West Aleppo — this is not really a route out of encirclement. They are doing it, so they can get the Syrian Army there, and then blame them for whatever happens to civilians. And those that so stupidly think that the offensive has ANYTHING to do with a breakout, need to consult some maps.
Al-Qaeda can do whatever it wants. Hillary Clinton has not been even linked to Al-Qaeda, all the time that she has been moaning over East Aleppo, not giving a thought to civilians that are kept there as a hostage.
Shocking they didn’t blame the Syrian Gov for gas attacks straight away. Still time for the US to twist the story though…
Just as they did with the Sarin Gas attack that their lap dog Al Nusra Front used!
….supplied by Turkey
Oh, I see you’ve been paying attention after all. My apologies.
When did the Directive go out to morph the ISIS “terrorists” to “rebels”?
Where have you been the last several years? The US has always supported al-Nusra and ISIS, through its proxies, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It’s called plausible deniability. The CIA has been arming and training the Fictional Syrian Army (FSA) since 2012, and this article from 2013 makes it clear there’s no difference between FSA, al-Nusra/al-Qaeda and ISIS: http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/middleeast/2013/07/80596.html
A DIA report to Obama in 2012 made it clear the rebels were dominated by what it referred to as IS and predicted that if the US continued its policy a caliphate would be declared: https://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/
UN is a big fucking liars