Trapped in hell: Bid to evacuate civilians from Aleppo threatened as buses burned

The Fatah al-Sham Front – the Front for the Conquest of Syria – reportedly torched the buses, which were due to evacuate more than 2,000 wounded and sick Syrians from Foua and Kfarya, two rebel-besieged villages which have remained loyal to the government in an area controlled by opposition forces in the north-west province of Idlib.

It came as UK foreign policy on the crisis was branded “appalling” and “naive to the point of being totally unrealistic”, by the director of one of Scotland’s leading international aid charities.

Alistair Dutton, of the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (Sciaf), said British interventions in the region had served to strengthen opposition forces and prolong the conflict, now approaching its six-year anniversary.

He called on UK ministers to accept that the best option for stability in the country is for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to regain control.

Dutton made the remarks during a visit to Lebanon to see how cash raised by Sciaf is helping the one and a half million Syrian refugees who have fled there since 2011.

He said: “British foreign policy is appalling towards Syria. It is naive to the point of being totally unrealistic and everybody I speak to in the region says we have got it wrong, and we are only making the situation worse and prolonging the civil war.”

Dutton, pictured below with Syrian refugee children at a Caritas centre in Lebanon, added that senior figures from the region have said “the best solution for Syria is to build a future which allows for Assad to be the Syrian leader”.

However, he stressed: “I’m not an apologist for Assad. What is happening in Aleppo is unforgivable. I’m as disgusted as anyone by the dreadful atrocities he has committed both in Aleppo and elsewhere. There is little doubt that he will continue to act in the most vicious and violent way in his quest to reassert control over the country.

“But no matter how immoral and inhumane his actions, holding to the current absolutist stance on Assad will only prolong the war and the unimaginable suffering of the Syrian people. His inhumanity should be contained by human-rights monitors, backed up by UN peacekeepers, which should be part of any settlement, not by the hopeless insistence that he is removed.”

Pro-government forces are demanding that people be allowed to leave the two mainly Shia villages to allow the evacuation of east Aleppo to restart. Despite the apparent setback, state media reported the departure of buses carrying people from Aleppo, but this has not been confirmed by other sources.

It is feared the attacks could scupper a wider agreement – brokered by Russia and Turkey – to evacuate thousands of civilians and fighters from the opposition’s last foothold in Aleppo and return the entire city to government control. The Aleppo evacuations were halted on Friday after several thousand trapped civilians had already been moved out of the city. Many were left stranded along the route out, without access to food or shelter.

The opposition’s UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Fatah al-Sham Front was behind yesterday’s attacks on the buses after dragging its feet over approving the evacuation deal. It said a number of buses had succeeded in entering Foua and Kfarya, but that six were attacked and torched.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group fighting alongside Syria’s government, said the buses were burned during fighting between Fatah al-Sham and a rebel group supporting the evacuations.

The identity of the group behind the attacks remains unclear and none has claimed responsibility.

A coalition of rebel groups condemned the burning of the buses as a “reckless attack”, saying it had endangered tens of thousands of Syrians trapped in Aleppo.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has overseen the Aleppo evacuations, has said thousands of people, including women, children, the sick and wounded, remain trapped in besieged areas of the city, waiting in freezing temperatures for the evacuations to resume.

Meanwhile, Russia said yesterday it would veto a French-drafted Security Council resolution aimed at ensuring that UN officials could monitor evacuations from Aleppo, and proposed a rival text it believed could achieve the same goal.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, raised concerns that the French resolution did not take into account the preparation needed for UN officials to be able to monitor evacuations and the protection of civilians who remain. “We have no problem whatsoever with any kind of monitoring,” he said. “But the idea that they should be told to go to wander around the ruins of eastern Aleppo without proper preparation and without informing everybody about what is going to happen, this has disaster written all over it.”

Churkin circulated a Russian resolution to council members during a closed-door meeting ahead of a planned vote on the French draft.

The Russian draft contained one key change, asking UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to “provide arrangements, including security arrangements, in coordination with the interested parties, to allow United Nations personnel to monitor the condition of civilians remaining in Aleppo”.

Russia, a key ally of Damascus, which has provided military backing to Assad’s troops, has vetoed six Security Council resolutions on Syria since the conflict started.

Francois Delattre, France’s UN Ambassador said he would be unable to compromise with Russia on what he described as “basic demands”.

____________________________________________________________________________Up to 10,000 fighters are now under the group’s command

JIHADIST group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham was previously known as al-Nusra Front, writes Greg Russell.

When it changed its name in July it reportedly cut ties with al-Qaeda, although this may have simply been a means by which it could become involved in the Syrian political process. Though no group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the buses, many are pointing the figure of blame at them.

The group is fighting forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and since its formation in 2011 it has been led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani. He has tried to forge alliances with other Islamist rebel groups, a process that has been hindered by his group’s al-Qaeda links.

It is the second-strongest insurgent group in Syria after Daesh and wants to replace the Assad regime with an Islamist state.

Fateh al-Sham was barred from taking part in US and Russia-brokered Syrian peace talks in Geneva and Vienna.

In the early days of the conflict, it claimed responsibility for a number of suicide bombings, including attacks on civilian targets which lost them public support for some time.

The group is accused of serving as a base for global al-Qaeda operations, including plotting attacks against targets in the US and Europe.

Over the years, it has gradually amassed and sustained territory throughout Syria. By mid-2016, Fateh al-Sham/the Nusra Front controlled territory in northern, western, and southern Syria, including the majority of Idlib province.

In Idlib, it established Sharia courts and took over government services. It also has strongholds in Aleppo.

Before it broke off from al-Qaeda, the Nusra Front had a long history as al-Qaeda’s loyal affiliate in Syria. In July, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri gave the group formal permission to break ties if the link was “conflicting with unity and working as one body”.

Most of its 10,000 fighters are Syrian, but it still causes alarm among Western and Arab governments due to its extremism and al-Qaeda links.