US turns ire on Russia as Aleppo descends into ‘slaughterhouse’

The United States has threatened to halt its diplomacy with Russia on Syria, saying it held Moscow accountable for the use of incendiary and bunker-busting bombs on Aleppo - a view a US official said could open Russia up to charges of war crimes.

The move comes as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the situation in the Syrian city of Aleppo as worse than a “slaughterhouse”.

Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting, he said those using “ever more destructive weapons” in Syria were committing war crimes.

US Secretary of State John Kerry conveyed his country’s hardened position in a call to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in which he voiced “grave concern” over the Russian-backed Syrian government’s air and land assault on rebel areas of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

“Secretary Kerry expressed grave concern over the deteriorating situation in Syria, particularly for continued Russian and Syrian regime attacks on hospitals, the water supply network, and other civilian infrastructure in Aleppo,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a written statement.

“The Secretary made clear the United States and its partners hold Russia responsible for this situation, including the use of incendiary and bunker buster bombs in an urban environment, a drastic escalation that puts civilians at great risk,” he added.

Kerry also told Lavrov Washington was preparing to end its diplomatic engagement with Moscow on Syria - including possible intelligence-sharing - if Russia did not take “immediate steps to end the assault on Aleppo” and restore a defunct ceasefire.

A US official said that the use of incendiary and bunker busting weapons in an area with civilians could open Russia up to accusations of war crimes but said there is no forum in which Russia might realistically face such charges.

“The use of such weapons in a populated area in a place civilians are known to be present could be viewed as an indiscriminate attack and thus a war crime,” said the official.

Two hospitals were damaged and a bakery hit in bombardments of rebel-held eastern Aleppo early on Wednesday, residents said, as Syrian government forces pressed their Russian-backed campaign to retake the whole city.

At least six people were killed by artillery shelling in the al-Maadi neighbourhood while they queued for bread at the bakery, residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

One of the damaged hospitals was near the bakery, and the other was in another part of Aleppo, the Sakhour district.

Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist at the other hospital that was damaged, known as M10, said the missiles struck around 4 am.

“The rubble fell in on the patients in the intensive care unit,” he told Reuters from Aleppo.

The strikes also hit the hospital’s oxygen and power generators, and patients were transferred to another hospital in the area, medical workers at the M10 hospital said.

Over 250,000 civilians are thought to be besieged in the rebel-held sector of Aleppo, where intensive bombing by government forces and their allies has killed hundreds of people since a ceasefire collapsed last week.

Reuters