UN security council to meet over escalation of Aleppo fighting

The United Nations security council is due to meet at 11 am n Sunday to discuss a recent escalation of fighting in Aleppo in Syria, diplomats said.

The meeting, which will be public, was requested by the United States, Britain and France, diplomats said.

Syrian government and rebel forces battled for control of high ground on the Aleppo outskirts on Saturday as warplanes bombed the city’s opposition-held east relentlessly in a Russian-backed offensive that has left Washington’s Syria policy in tatters.

President Bashar al-Assad’s troops have tightened their siege of Aleppo, after another 24 hours of intense bombardment that left dozens dead and nearly two million without water.

A barrage of bombs has been dropped on the city since Thursday when Assad, along with his Russian backers, abandoned a shaky ceasefire and government forces launched a new assault on the city that was Syria’s largest before the war.

The attack has left US policy on Syria in disarray, with diplomats pursuing a halt in hostilities even as Assad’s forces on the ground ramped up fighting using Moscow’s air power as back-up.

The intensity of the attack and the power of some of the larger bombs are unprecedented even for a city that has endured some of the most brutal fighting of Syria’s long civil war, including years of notoriously imprecise barrel bombs.

On the ground, Syrian troops were pressing their advantage and captured the Handarat camp for Palestinian refugees. Deserted, but strategically important, the camp is perched on elevated ground overlooking the key Castello road into besieged Aleppo.

That route fell to government troops in July, cutting off an estimated 250,000 people, and the latest advances consolidate the siege. “Handarat has fallen,” an official with one of the main Aleppo rebel groups told Reuters.

The scale and nature of the attacks have left Aleppo reeling and dozens dead. Activist groups said more than 50 bodies had been found since midnight on Friday alone. One warned that “people now don’t think they will live to see another day”.

Guardian and Reuters