Arab League urged to discuss Syria's Aleppo offensive
01/05/2016| IslamWeb
Qatar has called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League and urged the international community to "assume its responsibilities" as the Syrian regime keeps up its air offensive on the northern city of Aleppo.
Regime warplanes and helicopter gunships launched new air strikes on Saturday on Aleppo's opposition-held neighborhoods, killing at least eight people, officials said.
In the opposition-held east, dozens of civilians left the Bustan al-Qasr district on the ninth straight day of the Syrian regime military onslaught, an AFP news agency correspondent said.
The few people out on the streets watched the sky anxiously for regime warplanes, running for shelter when one launched a new raid.
Responding to the Aleppo assault, the Syrian opposition accused the regime of committing war crimes on civilians.
Speaking after a meeting in Istanbul in Turkey of the Syrian National Coalition, Anas al-Abdeh, the group's leader, said: "Aleppo has been reeling under intense, ferocious bombardment.
It is a systematic campaign. Therefore our meeting today focused on the situation in the besieged area, including Aleppo city.
"It is clear that the regime's uninterrupted shelling and air strikes amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"They attacked medical facilities, residential areas and a bakery catering for more than 300 families."
At least 246 civilians have died in shelling, rocket fire and air strikes since April 22, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitor said.
The Britain-based SOHR, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, reported on Saturday 28 air strikes on eastern neighborhoods.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Louay Safi, a former Syrian National Coalition leader, said: "There is an all-out war on Aleppo.
"The intensity of bombing is very high. They are hitting water facilities, public facilities ... the regime hasn't spared anybody.
"A large number of people have been killed in Aleppo and many of those who have been hurt are elderly and children. They are targeting residential areas using barrel bombs which are indiscriminate."
A pro-regime newspaper said on Thursday the regime army was preparing an offensive to recapture all of Aleppo and the surrounding province.
Battleground Aleppo
Some families have fled to safer districts, while others have left by the dangerous Castello Road, the only route out of east Aleppo.
Hospitals have also been bombed: four medical facilities were hit on Friday on both sides of the frontline, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
A raid on Wednesday hit a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders and the ICRC as well as nearby housing, killing 30 people.
Aleppo was left out of a new temporary US-Russian brokered truce in the regime stronghold of Latakia as well as Damascus and the nearby opposition-held Eastern Ghouta.
Fighting halted at 1am on Saturday in a "freeze" that held for 24 hours in Damascus and Eastern Ghouta, and was set to last for another 48 hours in Latakia.
The Qatari request to the Arab League came in the form of a memo seeking discussion on "the dangerous escalation seen in Aleppo where civilians are subjected to massacres at the hands of the forces of the Syrian regime, which has led to the deaths and injuries of hundreds".
Saying that the assault was in defiance of all international charters and principles, he called for the international community to "to stop the ongoing massacre and protect the Syrian people".
Saudi Arabia has also called on the international community and allies of Assad who had committed themselves to the "cessation of hostilities" to take necessary measures to stop "the attacks and crimes against the people of Syria".
PHOTO CAPTION
A civilian evacuates a baby from a site hit by airstrikes in Aleppo's al-Fardous district, Syria, April 29, 2016.
Al-Jazeera