Strikes pound Aleppo hospitals as Russian-backed assault worsens - Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

by Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

U.N. says rebel-held northeastern Syrian city is "worse than a slaughterhouse" • U.S. weighs tougher response, including military option, against Russia for involvement in unprecedented offensive • Hitting civilians, hospitals is a war crime, U.S. says.

The burned sign of the emergency section of a field hospital in the rebel-held al-Maadi neighborhood of Aleppo | Photo credit: Reuters

Russian or Syrian warplanes knocked two hospitals out of service in the besieged rebel city of Aleppo on Wednesday, and ground forces intensified their assault in a battle that the United Nations said had made the city "worse than a slaughterhouse."

Two patients were killed in one of the hospitals, while other shelling killed six residents queuing for bread. The siege on the northeastern city has trapped 250,000 people, with food running out.

The government of President Bashar Assad, backed by Russian air power, Iranian ground forces and Shiite militia fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, has launched a massive assault to crush the rebels' last major urban stronghold.

Syria's largest city before the war, Aleppo has been divided for years between government and rebel zones, and would be the biggest strategic prize of the war for Assad and his allies.

The week-long assault, which could herald a turning point in the war, has already killed hundreds of people, with bunker-busting bombs bringing down buildings on residents huddled inside. Only about 30 doctors are believed to be left inside the besieged zone, coping with hundreds of wounded a day.

Hospital workers said oxygen and power generators were destroyed and patients were transferred to another hospital.

Washington has accused Moscow and Damascus of war crimes for targeting civilians, hospitals, rescue workers and aid deliveries. Syria and Russia maintain they target only militants.

The Obama administration has begun considering tougher responses to the Russian-backed Syrian government assault on Aleppo, including military options, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

The new discussions were being held at "staff level," and have yet to produce any recommendations to President Barack Obama, who has resisted ordering military action against Assad.

But the deliberations coincide with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry threatening to halt diplomacy with Russia on Syria and holding Moscow responsible for dropping incendiary bombs on rebel areas of Aleppo.

It was the stiffest U.S. warning to the Russians since the Sept. 19 collapse of the truce they jointly brokered.

Even administration advocates of a more muscular U.S. response said on Wednesday that it was not clear what, if anything, the president would do, and that his options "begin at tougher talk," as one official put it.

One official said that before any action could be taken, Washington would first have "follow through on Kerry's threat and break off talks with the Russians" on Syria.

He said the failure of diplomacy in Syria has left the Obama administration no choice but to consider alternatives, most of which involve some use of force and have been examined before but held in abeyance.

These include allowing Gulf allies to supply rebels with more sophisticated weaponry, something considered more likely despite Washington's opposition to this until now. Another is a U.S. airstrike on an Assad air base, viewed as less likely because of the potential for causing Russian casualties, the officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The options being weighed are limited in number and stop well short of any large-scale commitment of U.S. troops, which Obama, who has only four months left in office, has long rejected, the officials said.

Critics of Obama's policy in Syria argue that he set a goal -- Assad's departure -- without providing sufficient means to achieve it by arming the rebels earlier and more extensively, allowing U.S. allies to do so or using U.S. military might to tip the scales in the conflict.

Further, foreign policy experts inside and outside the administration have said Obama erred when he pulled back from launching airstrikes on Syria to enforce a "red line" he set against the Assad government's use of chemical weapons. The result, they argued, was to diminish U.S. credibility in Moscow, Damascus and elsewhere because the perception took hold that Obama would not keep his word and follow through on his threat.

The most dramatic option under consideration -- but considered less likely -- would be a U.S. airstrike on a Syrian air base far from the fighting between Assad's troops and rebel forces in the north, officials said.

Other ideas under consideration include sending more U.S. special operations forces to train and advise Kurdish and Syrian rebel groups, and deploying additional American and allied naval and airpower to the eastern Mediterranean, where a French aircraft carrier is already en route.

U.S. officials had considered a humanitarian airlift to rebel-held areas, which would require escorts by U.S. warplanes, but this has been deemed too risky and has been "moved down the list," one official said.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday that U.S. officials involved in the interagency process that deals with national security had discussed other Syria options "that don't revolve around diplomacy." He declined to elaborate.

France's foreign minister said Wednesday he was working to put forward a United Nations Security Council resolution to impose a cease-fire in Aleppo, and that any country that opposed it would be deemed complicit in war crimes.

Speaking to French lawmakers, Jean-Marc Ayrault accused Syria, backed by Russia and Iran, of carrying out an "all-out war" on the population, and said France could not sit by idly watching.

"At this very moment, we are proposing to discuss a resolution to obtain a cease-fire in Aleppo," Ayrault said. "This resolution will leave everyone facing their responsibilities: those who don't vote for it risk being held responsible for complicity in war crimes."

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=36821

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