Russia Promises to Wipe Out Anyone Left in Eastern Aleppo
Paul McLeary
Foreign Policy Magazine December 6, 2016
Washington and Moscow Spar Over Which Rebel Groups to Bomb, and Which to Work With
Russian officials are threatening to target anyone who refuses to leave the rebel-held eastern Aleppo, after another round of talks between Washington and Moscow failed to materialize on Tuesday.
As Syrian government forces and their allies continue to snatch neighborhoods away from rebels inside the city in bloody street-by-street fighting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
said Tuesday that “if somebody refuses to leave Aleppo on good terms, he will be eliminated…there is no other way out.”
Russian and Syrian warplanes have been bombarding the rebel-held half of Aleppo for months, targeting hospitals, aid workers, and civilian apartment blocks for destruction. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, with as many as 250,000 people trapped in the densely-packed city surrounded by government forces, and sharing space with a variety of rebel groups.
Last month, Syrian planes dropped leaflets over the city
warning residents to “save yourselves. You know that everyone has left you alone to face your doom and have offered you no help.”
Moscow has long painted all anti-government rebels in Syria with the same brush, and refuses to acknowledge the differences between Islamist groups like the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, and more moderate, U.S.- and Turkish-backed rebel units.
“It’s sad that the Western nations, which talk about their concern for human rights and the humanitarian situation in Aleppo and the rest of Syria, are in reality continuing their policy of supporting radicals and extremists,” Lavrov said.
Russia and Syria seem intent on presenting President-elect Donald Trump with a fait accompli in Syria by taking Aleppo, one of the last major cities in rebel hands. On the campaign trail, Trump suggested letting Russia take the lead against Islamic State, later even offering to cooperate with Moscow to battle the terrorist group in Syria. That would mean abandoning the moderate rebels battling the regime of Bashar al Assad as well as the civilian population in areas targeted by Russian and Syrian attacks.
One U.S. defense official, who spoke to
FP on the condition of anonymity, said that Russian planes have been conducting daily sorties over Aleppo for weeks, and have also regularly bombed the Turkish- and U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army forces who are pushing toward the Islamic State stronghold of al Bab.
On Monday, Russia and China vetoed for the sixth time a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in Aleppo to allow humanitarian aid to move into the starving city, and to create more space for more talks on negotiating a withdrawal of rebel forces.
Also on Monday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that American diplomats are still open to working with the Russians, but it is hard to reach agreement. Russia, he said, is “very concerned” about the presence of the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in Aleppo, while Washington is concerned about the daily bombardment of the civilian population of the city, along with the “moderate Syrian opposition that should not and does not deserve to be bombed into submission.”
The sparring between Russia and the United States over who is fighting terrorists — and which terrorists need to be fought — is hardly limited to Syria.
On Friday, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, told reporters at the Pentagon that Russia has lent legitimacy to the Taliban. Moscow’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov,
recently revealed that his government “have contacts with the Taliban,” and is working on a cease-fire. “The Taliban are fighting in Afghanistan against the people we fought in Syria, that’s why our interests coincide,” he said, referring to ISIS.
Nicholson blasted the outreach, saying, “this public legitimacy that Russia lends to the Taliban is not based on fact, but it is used as a way to essentially undermine the Afghan government and the NATO effort and bolster the belligerents. So, it’s not helpful.”
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