DAMASCUS — Syrian forces are “wreaking disaster” on Aleppo, killing hundreds in air strikes on the city, Human Rights Watch said yesterday, as peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held talks with Iran’s foreign minister. “Government forces have really been wreaking disaster on Aleppo in the last month, killing men, women, and children alike,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW). “The Syrian air force is either criminally incompetent, doesn’t care whether it kills scores of civilians — or deliberately targets civilian areas,” Solvang added.
The HRW statement comes six days after the launch of a massive aerial campaign against opposition-held areas of Aleppo, once SyriaÂ’s commercial capital, involving dozens of warplane strikes and helicopter attacks using TNT-packed barrels. The New York-based organisation cited the Syrian Network for Human Rights as saying 232 civilians were killed from December 15 to 18 in and around the northern city.
HRW concluded that the attacks, which targeted both Aleppo city and its province, showed “government forces had used means and methods of warfare that… could not distinguish between civilians and combatants, making attacks indiscriminate and therefore unlawful”. It also lashed out against fighters for firing rockets and mortar rounds into civilian areas in government-controlled parts of Aleppo.
The city has been split into rebel and regime-controlled areas since mid-summer 2012 when fighters launched a massive offensive to try to take SyriaÂ’s second city. Yesterday, a day after fighters made a fresh advance in the city, overrunning the Kindi hospital, regime troops pounded the area, which loyalists had for months been using as a base, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Aleppo Media Centre, a network of activists on the ground, also said the army had launched a new attack against the opposition-held Qadi Askar neighbourhood.