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Foreign affairs reporter Oren Dorell explains who is fighting whom in the five-year Syrian Civil War in two minutes. USA TODAY
Russia was accused of possible war crimes in Syria as thousands of civilians remained trapped in Aleppo on Monday four days after President Bashar Assad began a new offensive to seize areas around the country's former economic capital.
The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting on Syria on Sunday during which the United States ambassador to the U.N. accused Moscow of "barbarism" for its airstrikes on the city.
"Instead of helping get lifesaving aid to civilians, Russia and Assad are bombing the humanitarian convoys, hospitals and first responders who are trying desperately to keep people alive," Samantha Power said.
But British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson went one step further before the meeting and said that last week's aid convoy bombing in which at least 20 people were killed would "constitute a war crime" if it was deliberately done. Powers and the British and French ambassadors to the U.N. walked out of the emergency meeting in protest when it was the turn of Syria's U.N. ambassador to address the council.
A Russia-U.S. brokered Syrian cease-fire deal broke down last week. Russia blames Syria's patchwork of opposition rebels for the renewed fighting and also accuses the West of not doing enough to separate moderate opposition forces from al-Qaeda-linked groups such as the Fatah Sham Front that all sides are battling.
“Bringing peace is almost an impossible task now,” said Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.
The latest diplomatic collapse came as activists for the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 26 civilians were killed in government airstrikes on Aleppo on Sunday. Since Thursday, bombing campaigns have killed about 350 people in and near Aleppo, according to the Local Coordinating Committees of Syria, a network of activists and groups who report on the conflict.
The U.N. estimates that about 600,000 Syrians are trapped in various government-enforced sieges in Aleppo and elsewhere.
The International Committee for the Red Cross said Sunday that it delivered food and medical supplies to about 60,000 people trapped in the Syrian towns of Madaya, Zabadani, Foua and Kafraya. They had been inaccessible to aid organizations for nearly six months.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon condemned the ongoing violence in Aleppo and all of Syria, saying he is appalled by the use of 'bunker-busting' bombs. (Sept. 25) AP
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