PHOTO: Children play while waiting removal from eastern Aleppo city on Saturday (Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters)

SUNDAY FEATURES

Analysis: Aleppo — Yes, 7-Year-Old Bana is Very Real
Opinion: Everyone Connected with Aleppo Abomination Will Pay A Heavy Price

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UPDATE 2010 GMT: Trapped in the cold of eastern Aleppo by the suspension of the removals, people plead, “For God’s sake, we need help”:

And a message condemning the attack on the convoy en route to the regime enclaves in Idlib Province, “Don’t they have mercy? Don’t they fear God?”:

UPDATE 1930 GMT: Suspicion is falling on Jund al-Aqsa, a former rebel faction that is now linked to the jihadist Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, for today’s burning of the convoy en route to two regime enclaves in Idlib Province.

Local sources also say men from the area joined the assault.

Jund al-Aqsa has a concentration of fighters in Sarmin, near the location of the attack on the convoy.

The influential cleric Abdallah Muhammad al Muhaysini has called on all rebels to reject the attack, “It is from the characteristics of the Muslims to be loyal to their agreements and they are not treacherous.”

UPDATE 1620 GMT: A previously unknown group, Saraya al-Tawhid, has declared that it will target any person removed from the regime enclaves of al-Fu’ah and Kafraya in Idlib Province.

The group has claimed responsibility for today’s attack on the convoy en route to the regime enclaves of al-Fu’ah and Kafraya in Idlib Province.

UPDATE 1320 GMT: A convoy of buses en route to move people from two regime enclaves in opposition-held Idlib Province has been attacked and burnt.

Suspicion has fallen on the jihadists of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra). However, a pro-JFS/Nusra has posted pictures blaming rebel factions:

Free Syrian Army factions in Aleppo have condemned the attack aas a “crime against the Syrian revolution”

Photographs and videos show a slain driver and the buses on fire near the town of Sarmin, southeast of Idlib city:

Footage of attackers at the site:

UPDATE 1300 GMT: Multiple reports say buses have begun arriving in both eastern Aleppo city and in two regime enclaves in Idlib Province, under a renewed agreement for removals.

The deal reportedly covers the estimated 50,000 people still in eastern Aleppo; 4,000 in the regime enclaves of al-Fu’ah and Kafraya; and 1,500 medical cases from opposition-held Zabadani and Mayada in Damascus Province.

Wounded awaiting departure from eastern Aleppo:

aleppo-wounded-12-16

UPDATE 1030: Tom Cooper assesses for War is Boring that, behind “victory” in Aleppo, the Assad regime is almost totally dependent on forces outside the Syrian Arab Army:

Assad is waging a war with virtually no troops of his own.

The exceptions to this rule are few — only around a dozen of company-sized formations that survived the collapse of the Syrian army’s Republican Guards Division and 4th Armored Division. And those companies were never within the normal army chain of command, instead personally answering to Al Assad.

The majority of the remaining “regime forces” —some 70,000 combatants — belong to the Syrian militias, all of which were established by either the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or Hezbollah, and the majority of which now fall under Iranian control.

Around 25,000 nominally-Iranian troops supplement the militias. Many are Afghan Hazaras and various other Iranian proxies, including members of Hezbollah-Lebanon and also the Iraqi version of the Levant militant group.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Discussions are ongoing about the renewal of a deal for Syria’s largest city Aleppo, allowing the removal of an estimated 50,000 civilians and thousands of rebels.

Iran has undermined two previous agreements, brokered by Russia and Turkey, with Iranian-backed and pro-Assad militias carrying out shelling and gunfire of a passenger convoy and opposition areas.

See Syria Daily, Dec 16: Aleppo Evacuation Halted by New Pro-Assad Attacks
Syria Videos: The Endangered Civilians in Aleppo

On Friday, the attack on the convoy of about 800 passengers — with claims that four were killed and several wounded, as a militia forced the men to undress and took mobile phones, money, and clothing — suspended the latest deal. Before the attack, eight convoy had taken about 10,000 people out of eastern Aleppo city to opposition-held Idlib Province.

Tehran objected that the agreement did not include a provision for the evacuation of wounded from two regime enclaves, al-Fu’ah and Kafraya, in Idlib Province. Rebels are concerned that the provision would expose two opposition towns in Damascus Province, Zabadani and Madaya, to even tighter regime sieges, bombing, and ground assaults.

The regime enclaves and opposition towns are currently linked in an arrangement allowing some aid and assurance against being overrun.

Russia, the Assad regime’s other main ally, supported the exclusion of the regime enclaves from the first two deals, but were effectively overruled by the Iran line and the militia attacks.

aleppo-man-small-child-12-16

Early Saturday, a rebel official and a regime counterpart said that a renewed deal included the removal of some wounded from al-Fu’ah/Kafraya and Zabadani/Madaya.

But other sources said negotiations were ongoing over details of how the removals would take place and how many people would be transported. Pro-opposition journalist Hadi al-Abdallah reported:

Munir Sayal, a senior official in the Ahrar al-Sham rebel faction, ehcoed: “Iran and its sectarian proxies are using the humanitarian situation of our people in besieged Aleppo and preventing civilians from leaving until the evacuation of their groups in al-Fu’ah and Kafraya.

Late Saturday, rebel negotiator Al Farouk Abu Kafr offered hope that the arrangements had been confirmed:

An agreement was reached to evacuate pro-regime loyalists from the towns of Fu’ah and Kafraya in Idlib province. This will allow evacuations from east Aleppo to resume within the next few hours.

A number of civilians will also be evacuated from the besieged cities of Madaya and Zabadani as part of the deal. In the next few hours, we will see the agreement taking effect.

But this morning the pro-opposition Aleppo 24 said the names of those to leave Madaya and Zabadani are still to be completed and agreed.

Meanwhile, 26-year-old medical technician Ahmad Abo Dyab, waiting for removal, expressed the desperation of many in eastern Aleppo:

By bus, by car, by walking, even crawling, we are ready to leave by any way, we just want to get out.

We have given up on our homes, our belongings, everything: now we only want to get out….

I wish God would get us out of this horrible situation, people here want to die a hundred times a day.

Those still waiting:

aleppo-waiting-12-16

UN Votes on Sunday About Aleppo Monitors

The UN Security Council is due to vote Sunday on a French-drafted resolutio for international monitors for eastern Aleppo city.

The draft text “emphasizes that the evacuations of civilians must be voluntary and to final destinations of their choice, and protection must be provided to all civilians who choose or who have been forced to be evacuated and those who opt to remain in their homes”.

The text asks UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to “redeploy the United Nations humanitarian staff already on the ground to carry out adequate, neutral monitoring, direct observation and to report on evacuations from besieged parts of Aleppo and protection of civilians inside Aleppo.”

It also “demands that all parties allow complete, immediate, unconditional, safe and unhindered access for the United Nations and its implementing partners” through the most direct route throughout Syria.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin indicated on Friday that Moscow will veto the proposal:

Deployment of monitors will take weeks. These are to be well-prepared people who know what they do and how to do that. It is unrealistic to think that it can be done in a span of two or three days.

Do we need to waste two months to resume a United Nations monitoring mission?

An appeal from Lina Shamy, inside eastern Aleppo city, for UN monitors to “walk with the convoys of civilians and revolutionaries untill the last person is evacuated safely”.

Los Angeles Times reporter Nabih Bulos walks through the destruction in eastern Aleppo city, “This is just an entire area destroyed”: