PHOTO: White Helmets civil defense volunteer in Aleppo addresses UN Security Council session on Monday

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Interview: “The Siege is the Worst Way of Death”

UPDATE 1525 GMT: On the southwestern Aleppo, rebels have maintained their assault on a cement factory, near the southern ring road, being used as a garrison by pro-Assad forces.

Pro-opposition activists claim that shelling has set fuel tankers ablaze inside the factory.

RAMOUSEH CEMENT FACTORY 09-08-16

UPDATE 1115 GMT: White Helmets rescue workers report 13 people killed and “many injured” in the latest regime bombing of districts of Aleppo city.

Among the areas hit were al-Sakhour and al-Sukkari.

ALEPPO BOMBING 09-08-16

ORIGINAL ENTRY: The UN Security Council discussed the humanitarian situation in Syria’s largest city Aleppo on Monday, but a Russian response pointed to little prospect of action.

US Ambassador Samantha Power insisted, “If the fighting continues it is conceivable that civilians on both sides of Aleppo could be cut off from the basic assistance they need. We cannot allow this to happen.”

But Russia’s Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said the US and other countries were politicizing the humanitarian issue, and they must “admit that the main cause of all of the humanitarian problems in Syria is not the counter-terrorist actions by the legitimate government of Syria”.

Safronkov said the discussion of the humanitarian situation of hundreds of thousands of civilians was getting in the way of other priorities: “The propaganda and the emotional rhetoric, the unfounded accusations, the information campaign, means that we cannot move toward a political settlement in Syria.”

The Russian representative said the UN’s members should focus on combining efforts to combat terrorism — effectively the support of the Assad regime’s campaign against rebels — and then a renewal of Syrian peace talks.

The session included briefings by a White Helmets rescue volunteers and doctors from the Syrian American Medical Society who recently returned from Aleppo.

Power followed the briefings with the call, “We once again urge Russia to stop facilitating these sieges and to use its influence to press the regime to end its sieges across Syria once and for all.”

She cited UN figures that the Syrian military is imposing nearly 80% of the sieges throughout Syria.

In early July pro-Assad forces established a siege of opposition-held areas of Aleppo, with an estimated 250,000 to 400,000 residents, when they cut off the last route north of the city.

Three weeks later, Russia said it was establishing seven “humanitarian corridors” for civilians and surrendering rebels to leave the opposition districts, but residents and activists said that there were never any corridors and that Moscow’s declaration was a PR exercise.

The Russian “corridors” were overtaken on the battlefield within days, as rebels launched an offensive southwest of Aleppo to regain territory, including an artillery base and air force college.

On Saturday, rebels outside and inside Aleppo city reached each other, breaking the month-long siege. They are now seeking to expand their own 2-km (1.25-mile) wide corridor to safely move food and supplies.

See Syria Daily, August 7: Rebels Break Aleppo Siege

As the Council held its session, Russian and regime warplanes continued their bombing near Aleppo, reportedly using cluster munitions. The strikes included attacks on Darat Izza, 30 km (19 miles) northwest of the city, that killed and wounded civilians.

DARAT IZZA CHILD INJURED 08-08-16

Jaish al-Islam Launches Counter-Offensive in East Ghouta

The leading rebel faction Jaish al-Islam has launched a counter-offensive in the East Ghouta area near Damascus.

Attacks which began on Monday night are trying both to regain territory lost since the spring, and to complement the rebel offensive near Aleppo. Jaish al-Islam said it is moving on a front near al-Marj, including the airport and the Agriculture Building.

In recent weeks, the faction has been battling regime forces near the village of Hawsh al-Fara.

JAISH AL-ISLAM OFFENSIVE 08-16

Map by Artur Rosinski of NewsMap:

EAST GHOUTA 09-08-16

Rebels Take Regime Position in West Hama

Rebels have taken a regime water station in western Hama in an overnight attack.

The al-Nasr Army and other factions seized the position.

The Ahrar al-Sham group said it targeted regime locations with Grad rockets in the Hama airbase on Monday.

Map by Artur Rosinski of NewsMap:

WEST HAMA 09-08-16

Islamic State Assassinates Jaish al-Islam Commander

The Islamic State has assassinated a leader of the rebel faction Jaish al-Islam.

Jaish al-Islam spokesman Islam Alloush said that the commander was killed by a bomb, and that an investigation was pursuing the suspects.

1st Images of British Special Forces Inside Syria

The BBC has posted the first footage of British special forces operating inside Syria.

The pictures from June show British soldiers supporting the New Syria Army, a force created last year to fighting the Islamic State in eastern Syria.

The images at the NSA base at al-Tanf, near a border crossing with Iraq, show the British soldiers atop long-range patrol vehicles following an ISIS attack. The troops carry anti-tank missiles, sniper rifles, and heavy artillery.

British special forces operated inside Syria in the early years of the conflict, but withdrew amid uncertainty about London’s policy and operations alongside rebel units.

In May, US special forces were photographed for the first time in the country, supporting a Kurdish-led advance against ISIS in northeastern Syria.

Death Toll in Hospital Bombing Rises to 13

The death toll from a Saturday bombing of a hospital in Idlib Province in northwestern Syria has risen to 13.

Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Monday that the attack on the Hope Hospital, which it supported, was an “outrage” which violated international law.

The international medical organization reported that four airstrikes destroyed most of the hospital, which specialized in children’s medicine and served about 70,000 people in the town of Meles. The facility provided emergency care or consultations for about 250 patients a day.

Four staff and nine patients, including five children and two women, were killed. Six employees were wounded.

IDLIB HOSPITAL DESTRUCTION 08-16

Russia and the Assad regime have bombed scores of hospitals and medical facilities since last September, stepping up the attacks in the past month. Much of northwest Syria is now without a fully-functioning hospital, with only three remaining in Aleppo city.

The attack on the Meles facility, the biggest referral hospital in the area, has left much of the local population without access to health care, MSF said.

Dr Silvia Dallatomasina, the medical manager of MSF operations in northwestern Syria, said:

The direct bombing of another hospital in Syria is an outrage….

We repeat our urgent call to all those with influence on the conduct of the war in Syria, including the four out of five permanent members of the UN Security Council that are participants in the war, to urgently affect change to stop hospitals being hit in the course of the fighting.