Continued.....
On July 17, following weeks of intense Russian bombing and ground attacks by Iranian-backed Shia militias from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, the regime captured the Castello Road. This meant Aleppo was fully beseiged.
IS, as usual, was attacking the rebels at the same time that Assad was.
So was the YPG, armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (or PYD), which had helped prepare the siege by invading Arab-majority towns to the north. The PYD claimed it was fighting ‘jihadists’, but these areas were defended by Free Syrian Army factions and ruled by independent councils.
American artist and journalist Molly Crabapple visited Azaz, a town hard-pressed by the PYD, after its second liberation. She described it thus: “They’d painted over the IS emblems in shocking pink, and then they’d painted the Quranic verse ‘There is no compulsion in religion’.”
Near Azaz the PYD advanced under Russian cover. In IS-held Manbij, it (as the dominant element in the ill-named Syrian Democratic Forces) advances under American planes. American bombing atrocities (such as the strikes on July 19 killing scores of civilians) are less frequent, less deliberate, but just as devastating as those perpetrated by Russia.
Russia is dropping banned cluster and incendiary bombs on a grand scale. Russian and Assadist planes have upped the war on hospitals, hitting six medical facilities in 24 hours (on July 23 and 24).
The US administration has had nothing to say about this. Quite the contrary, President Obama has apparently approved a proposal to cooordinate American airstrikes with Russia, against Jabhat al-Nusra. And the Obama administration has consistently vetoed transfers of essential anti-aircraft weaponry to the rebels.
Aleppo has been all but abandoned by the world
Facing suffocation and defeat, with no-one coming to their aid, revolutionaries and fighters have now decided to unify their energies. For the last four days rebels have fought to lift the siege, attacking from multiple directions on a 20-km-long front.
Demonstrators, meanwhile, are marching in support of the battle, and citizens are organising their own inpromptu No-Fly Zone, burning hundreds of tyres to cloud the skies and protect the advancing fighters. These include Free Army and Islamist battalions from across Aleppo and northern Syria.
To the south of the city, the vanguard force is Jaish al-Fateh, comprising Ahrar al-Sham and the jihadists of Jabhat al-Nusra. Jaish al-Fateh is close to breaking the siege.
America watched or actively collaborated as Aleppo was driven into the abyss. Nusra, on the other hand, came to the people’s rescue. What message does this send?
For Syrians facing death and no good options, military realities must weigh heavier than social and political differences. In other words, in current conditions, they have no choice but to work with Nusra.
Now rebranded as ‘Fateh al-Sham’ and formally delinked from al-Qaida, Nusra is embedding itself by military prowess. Its role is being immeasurably strengthened by Russian and American policies.
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