Syrian government and Russian warplanes pounded rebel-held parts of northern Syria Wednesday, including battered second city Aleppo, where food aid rations were all-but-exhausted after months of regime siege. The renewed bombardment has killed at least 32 people in Aleppo in the last 24 hours, and sparked anger from Washington and the United Nations.
It came as President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview that US president-elect Donald Trump could be a "natural ally" if he fights "terrorists". Damascus considers all those who oppose Assad's government to be "terrorists" like the Islamic State group, which Trump has said should be the focus of US involvement in Syria. Damascus and its ally Russia launched a wide-ranging assault on rebels on Tuesday, shattering a month of relative calm in the rebel-held east of devastated Aleppo.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, says at least 32 people, among them six children, have been killed in government strikes and artillery fire on besieged opposition-held districts since Tuesday. The Independent Doctors Association, a medical group, said barrel bomb attacks had damaged two facilities it supports in eastern Aleppo - the children's hospital and the only bloodbank in the area.
Medical facilities have regularly been hit, and sometimes completely destroyed, in the government's fight against rebels, though Damascus and Moscow deny they have targeted hospitals. The Observatory also reported strikes in Idlib province, in north-western Syria, where six people were killed in the village of Kafr Jalis on Tuesday night. "We worked through the night to lift the debris and remove the martyrs and surviving civilians, and now we're trying to remove the rubble blocking the roads," said Yahya Arja from the White Helmets civil defence in the province.
The bombardment ended a period of relative respite, particularly in eastern Aleppo, where Moscow halted air strikes on October 18 ahead of a series of brief cease-fires. The cease-fires were intended to encourage residents and surrendering rebels to leave the east, but few did so, expressing fear of moving into government-held territory.
Food aid stockpiled in the east is all-but-exhausted, with international organisations and their local partners saying they were distributing the final rations in recent days.
No aid has entered the eastern neighbourhoods since government troops surrounded it in mid-July. Once Syria's economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the war that has killed more than 300,000 people across the country since it started in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
Assad ally Russia intervened in September last year in a bid to bolster the government, and on Tuesday said its forces were launching a "major operation" in Idlib and central Homs province, targeting IS and former al Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front. But the bombardment has been criticised by both the UN and Washington, with the General Assembly's human rights committee voting overwhelmingly on Tuesday to condemn escalating attacks on civilians. Washington said it had received reports that the latest bombing raids had damaged civilian infrastructure in rebel areas.
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