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Monday, May 2, 2016

FYI Aleppo Is Burning while you are kept ignorant

One of the greatest war crimes of our time is happening while I write this. This has been an extremely bloody week in Syria as Syrian and Russian forces carry out a massive attempt to crush any resistance and retake the entire city for the fascist forces. There are still many civilians in Aleppo and in the past 8 days they have been subjected to 240 air strikes and 120 artillery strikes. The strikes have specifically targeted critical civilian infrastructure like the water supply and hospitals. The Russian jets have been attacking civilians fleeing Aleppo on the only road out still open. They are trying bottle up the quarter million civilians still holding out in Aleppo so that they can starve them out as they have tried to do in other areas with the help of the United Nations.

They are doing this with full support of the Obama administration, which is not objecting to the Russian lead offensive, and the collusion of the US media, which has buried the story. Sadly most of the Left is participation in this cover up although happy we see that is staring to change.

If you are only now hearing about this from me, then you too have been the victim of a crime, the crime of cover up and criminal indifferent on the part of the establishment media, including Democracy Now.

'Aleppo is burning' protest outside White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, DC

Their is also a social media campaign of awareness and protest using the hashtag #AleppoIsBurning and many are painting their avatar red in protest.

Yesterday the Syrian Network for Human Rights issued a special report:
The Governmental and Russian Forces burn Aleppo Province
“The Red Death”


I. Introduction:
The neighborhoods of Aleppo Province, which is under the control of the armed opposition factions, witnessed daily bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces, and that one day after the declaration of the supreme body to postpone their participation in the Geneva negotiations held on the 19th of last April.
Many political declarations contributed in saying that the presence of the “Al Nosra” in Aleppo had contributed to the increase of violence and cruelty of those attacks. However, even with the presence of “Al Nosra” or even ISIL or any armed organization, does not justify randomly bombing targets of the city which is located within the control of any military faction and without taking into account the distinction between military and civilian people. Moreover, the violations targeted greatest goals-mentioned in the report- which were never military headquarters, and not even close to military headquarters. It is also relatively far from the lines of the clash, thus, no military value is found. We refer to the names of the victims and their pictures, women and children in addition to the families’ talks.

The report pointed out that the Governmental Forces are still using explosive barrels devices that are thrown from the sky and based on the principle of free fall. This is considered as indiscriminate weapon par excellence. We consider that every explosive barrel is a war crime, because it does not achieve any norm of international humanitarian law, and is still permitted in spite of Security Council resolutions, reports, and condemnations. The network recorded, during the period covered, around 86 explosive barrels on Aleppo city.

In this regard, Fadel Abdul Ghani, director of SNHR states:
“The responsibility for determining the places and the distributions of military sites for “Al Nosra” and ISIL exclusively, located mainly on the state sponsor of the Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities. We have referred to this in the first days of launching the statement of the agreement in order not to justify bombing any civilian target, easily, even if it is located in an area under Al Nosra or ISIL. The Syrian and the Russian Forces have exploited this gap, deliberately, in the agreement and justified killing of hundreds of civilians since the start of the statement so far.”
VIEW FULL REPORT [PDF]

The Telegraph is reporting:
Aleppo braces for 'war of all wars' as regime prepares to retake key Syrian city

Josie Ensor, Beirut
29 April 2016 • 5:41pm
Aleppo saw one of its bloodiest days since the ceasefire began on Friday, as government forces laid the groundwork for a “war of all wars” to retake Syria’s second city.

The carnage of the last few days has propelled Aleppo - bitterly contested since 2012 and considered the jewel of Syria - once again to the main battlefield in the civil war.

The Syrian regime pounded rebel areas in the city with air raids, including on another medical clinic, while opposition fighters hit government-held neighbourhoods with rocket and artillery fire.

Friday prayers were cancelled across Aleppo for only the second time during the five-year war, so worried were residents that they would be targeted if they gathered in groups. More...
As reported by the Business Insider:
The Obama administration is 'giving full cover to the Russians' in Syria — and the results are 'catastrophic'

Natasha Bertrand
29 April 2016

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad pounded the Syrian city of Aleppo in airstrikes on Thursday, targeting a hospital and killing at least 55 civilians in a new offensive that's believed to have been months in the making.

The situation has resulted in a "catastrophic deterioration in Aleppo over the last 24 to 48 hours," Jan Egeland, the chairman of the UN humanitarian task force for Syria, told reporters Thursday.

"Doctors have been killed, health workers have been killed, and medical workers have been blocked from coming to their patients," he said. "We can now refute allegations we heard from some government people and others that there are only fighters and terrorists in Daraya. We have seen with own eyes very many children, very many other civilians."

Local truces were brokered near Damascus on Friday, but there was no mention of halting combat in Aleppo, further north.

Both Moscow and Damascus have denied that their warplanes were responsible for airstrikes on Al-Quds hospital — a facility supported by Doctors Without Borders — and continue to insist that they are only striking terrorists. US Secretary of State John Kerry called it a "deliberate strike," one that "follows the Assad regime's appalling record of striking such facilities and first responders."

But the Assad regime considers all rebels to be terrorists, making medical facilities in opposition-held territory "de-facto illegal" and therefore legitimate targets, according to The Guardian.

Many analysts argue that the cessation of hostilities (CoH) brokered by the US and Russia in February has legitimized Russia and Assad's unwillingness to differentiate between Islamic extremists and more moderate, Western-backed opposition groups. The truce, they say, has allowed forces loyal to Assad to keep bombing rebel territory, as long as they can argue that terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra are present.

As such, many are questioning the extent to which the agreement gave Assad and his allies cover to plan their onslaught on Aleppo.

"I was told back in February that a full Aleppo offensive would take 2-3 months to prepare," The Washington Post's Beirut bureau chief Liz Sly tweeted on Thursday. "So the CoH just filled the gap."

'The administration is now giving full cover to the Russians'

So far, Washington's response to the onslaught in Aleppo has been limited t0 official statements condemning the airstrikes that destroyed Al-Quds hospital. And most say it will stay that way.

"If the US doesn't have a plan to roll out just after official end of CoH (and Obama's comments suggest it), the perception of collusion [between Russia and the US] will grow," saidEmile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Hokayem was likely referring to comments Obama made in a press conference from London last week, where, in reference to the CoH, he said "we are going to have to play this option out."

"If, in fact, the cessation falls apart, we’ll try to put it back together again even as we continue to go after ISIL," he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State terrorist group. "And it’s my belief that ultimately Russia will recognize that." More...



Syria is the first holocaust of the 21st century!

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria
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