PHOTO: US military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren


The US military’s spokesman in Baghdad has retracted the false statement, exploited by Syria’s Assad regime and Russia, that the jihadists of Jabhat al-Nusra control opposition-held areas of Aleppo city.

Colonel Steve Warren declared on April 25, “Tt’s primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo.” The line was used by the regime and Russia militaries to justify attacks on opposition districts, since Jabhat al-Nusra is excluded from the February 27 cessation of hostilities.

Warren said in an e-mail this week, “I was incorrect when I said Nusra holds Aleppo.”

He added that it “turns out that our current read is that Nusra controls the northwest suburbs” and other groups control the center.

In fact, it is other rebel factions, particularly from the Free Syrian Army, who are fighting regime forces in northwestern Aleppo city. The rebels briefly advanced this week in the al-Zahra district, leveling buildings used by the Syrian military and its foreign allies.

A “top official” of one international humanitarian group sending aid into northern Syria, said:

I can find no one who thinks that Nusra is in control, aside from the U.S. spokesperson. Totally inaccurate. They’re the faction with the least presence.

Officials in Aleppo and rebel sources said their factions control about 80% of the opposition-held area of the city.

After protests, the State Department issued a disclaimer this week: “The government of the United States knows that the city of Aleppo is not under the exclusive control of Jabhat al-Nusra, rather it is controlled by diverse groups of the armed opposition.”

However, the statement was issued only in Arabic and made no reference to Warren’s briefing.

Osama Taljo, a memeber of the opposition’s Aleppo City Council, described the damage from Warren’s statement:

Nusra has no weight in Aleppo. To say that Nusra exists in Aleppo is only a pretext to bomb civilians.

Nusra is there in the form of small groups, not even military groups, rather they are elements of Nusra who fight in the south of Aleppo and live in Aleppo.