Alwaght- The US scenario that was implemented in Syria three months ago is about to be repeated. This time the terrorists are encircled in Aleppo and only are linked to the outside world through Ramosa quarter in the city while being under heavy fire of the Syrian army and its allies. All of the pawns in the battlefield are well-arranged to destroy ISIS terrorist group. However, the Americans once again like in May have called for a ceasefire deal– a scenario that this time, too, is backed by the UN. In early May the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sent a letter to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, calling Aleppo Stalingrad of Syria.
Since dawn of Tuesday the clashes started near Ramosa. The terrorist groups led by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, the rebranded al-Nusra Front, after a week of persistent and massive attacks have managed to gain control of the area. By this progress the terrorists succeeded in connecting their areas of control in east and west of Aleppo. But because Ramosa is under fire of the Syrian forces both from south and north of the city, the success of terrorists is considered as yielding no results for them. The fighting in this area was largely ceased on Sunday and Monday, and the Syrian forces along with their backers only targeted positions of the terrorist groups by artillery shelling and air raids.
Aleppo is the largest city of Syria, and was economic capital of the country before devastating crisis erupted. The city is of strategic and symbolic significance for both of the warring sides of Syria's conflict. As the battle rolled on in Aleppo, the Syrian forces and their allies managed to recapture Castillo Road, a major supply line of the terrorists near Aleppo. Such a breakthrough resulted in fully bringing under encirclement the terrorist-held areas in Aleppo’s east. The blockade has severely endangered existence of armed groups in Aleppo, something pushed them to react and go to great lengths to break the army-imposed tight blockade.
Meanwhile, the news outlets have reported of large-scale support offered to the armed groups by some foreign countries. Still, after over 10 days of fierce clashes they failed to open a safe supply line and passage for themselves in eastern Aleppo.
Diplomacy for Terror Groups
As the efforts to break Aleppo siege have proven unsuccessful, the West has stepped up attempts in two fields.
The Western concerns about failure of anti-government terror groups have also spilled over to Britain. The BBC has reported that it gained images displaying British army's special forces deployed to the Syrian territories. The British broadcaster claimed that they aimed at helping operations by forces of Free Syrian Army (FSA).
At the same time the West has intensified its diplomatic pressures to rescue the terrorists by trying to broker a truce between the two sides in the contested city. The UN Security Council on Monday held a meeting to discuss the unfolding fighting in Aleppo. The session was held at the presence a member of a rescue team and two American doctors from the Syrian-American Medical Society who had just arrived from Aleppo. Samantha Power, the US envoy to the UN, has called on Russia to halt backing the process of including more areas of Aleppo in the tight encirclement staged by the Syrian armed forces. She also demanded Moscow to use influence to ask Damascus to stop continuation of such blockades across Syria. The Deputy Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations Alexis Lamek has warned that Aleppo developments could destroy Vienna agreement on peace in Syria, and so the anti-terror operations in Syria would never yield results, and that only civilians were victimized. At the same time, the UN has called for a 48-hour ceasefire to stop the clashes and so make it easier to deliver humanitarian aids to the residents of Aleppo.
The request of UN and Western officials under humanitarian excuses has been met with reactions of the critics who argue that the UN is highlighting possible sunstrokes suffered by the children in Aleppo while it has failed to react to “heinous” massacring of the children in Yemen by Saudi airstrikes. The Saudi pressures recently forced the UN to backtrack on Yemen child deaths official report.
Along with ongoing fighting for controlling Aleppo, the US has kept open negotiation channels with Russia in a bid to repeat its scenario that three months ago was implemented in Aleppo, a scenario that resulted in a limited ceasefire and so delay of a major anti-terror military operation by Syrian forces to liberate the city. The Russian officials on Tuesday said that they negotiated with the Americans to help hold the fire between the two sides for 48 hours. Russia's Interfax news agency reported that the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Office in Geneva Alexey Borodavkin has said that Russia and US started talks to support ceasefire in Aleppo and broker a new 48-hour truce aimed at sending humanitarian aids into the city.
