No letup in Assad’s Aleppo savagery

Residents of opposition-held eastern Aleppo woke up to a fresh wave of airstrikes Friday amid clashes between government forces and rebels, part of a devastating military campaign by Syria and Russia that opposition activists say killed dozens of people in the past week.
President Bashar Assad has voiced his intention to recapture the northern city’s rebel-held eastern neighborhoods, saying a military victory in Aleppo would provide the Syrian Army a “springboard” from which to liberate other areas of the country.
“You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey to go back to where they came from, or to kill them. There’s no other option,” he said in an interview with a Russian media outlet, Komsomolskaya Pravda, released Thursday.
Assad said Aleppo was effectively no longer Syria’s industrial capital but taking back the city would provide important political and strategic gains for his regime.
Syrian government forces have encircled the eastern half of Aleppo, besieging over a quarter of a million people who they say are being used as human shields by “terrorists.” 
The siege has caused an international outcry with a number of countries and groups accusing Syria and Russia of war crimes in connections with attacks on medical facilities and aid convoys.
The siege and deadly bombardment has caused an international outcry with a number of countries and groups accusing Syria and Russia of war crimes in connection with attacks on medical facilities and aid convoys.
US President Barack Obama planned to convene his National Security Council for a highly anticipated meeting about Syria. 
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Friday reported dozens of overnight airstrikes on eastern Aleppo. It added that clashes are taking place on the northern and southern edges of the city.
The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said the airstrikes killed and wounded a number of people, with some buried under the debris.
Meanwhile, diplomatic sources have told Reuters that the number of radical fighters in eastern Aleppo who are not protected by any cease-fire deal, and can therefore be legitimately targeted, is far smaller than an estimate given by the UN.
Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham (JFS) is one of Syria’s most powerful rebel forces, and under its former name — Al-Nusra Front — it was designated as a terrorist group because of links with Al-Qaeda.
Russia, Syria and Iran say JFS’s presence in besieged eastern Aleppo justifies their attacks, which began despite a US-Russian cease-fire, but the UN has urged them to stop using the group’s presence as an “easy alibi” to bomb the city.
None of them have given estimates of JFS numbers in Aleppo.
Last week UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said there were a maximum of 900 JFS members out of a total 8,000 rebel fighters within the besieged opposition-held area.
Several sources independently told Reuters that de Mistura’s figure for JFS fighters was far too high, and the real number was no more than 200, perhaps below 100. One Western diplomat said it possibly had no more than a “symbolic” presence.
“The Russians indicated they wanted to talk about de Mistura’s plan which is to get the rebel fighters out of Aleppo. We are a bit skeptical. De Mistura spoke about 900 fighters from Fateh Al-Sham, we estimate (the number) at much less,” one senior French diplomatic source said.
De Mistura has offered to personally escort the fighters out of the city in return for a cease-fire observed by all parties.
He has already scaled back his estimate.
On Sept. 25, he said that he had information that more than half the fighters in eastern Aleppo were from JFS but gave no total figure. Last week he cited a “much more updated analysis,” and he said the 900 figure was “in my opinion, quite reliable.”
His office declined to comment on where he had got the 900 figure from, but quoted remarks he made to a closed-door session of the UN Security Council last week: “If Al-Nusra are 900 people, then 900 will have to leave. If they are less, then less will leave. We will be actually involved in that. The point is that every Al-Nusra fighter will leave the city and the rest will stay if they want to.”
A Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham spokesman did not immediately comment on the number.

Source: Arab News