UN official denies Assad claim on convoy attack

“The drivers are sleeping at the border and they have done so now for a week, so please, President Assad, do your bit to enable us to get to eastern Aleppo and also the other besieged areas”, Egeland added, in a direct appeal to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Assad said USA airstrikes on Syrian troops in the country‚à “ôs east were ‚à “údefinitely intentional, ‚à “ù lasting for an hour, and blamed the US for the collapse of a cease-fire deal brokered with Russian Federation”.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has rejected U.S. allegations that his country or Russian Federation attacked a United Nations aid convoy on Monday.

He also said that the conflict is likely to drag on because the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar keep supporting those opposed to Assad’s rule. But in his power base in the Syrian capital, President Bashar Assad projected confidence – conceding nothing to his critics, and accusing the US of derailing a cease-fire and lacking the “will” to fight extremists in his country. Witnesses described a sustained, two-hour barrage that included barrel bombs – crude, unguided explosives that the Syrian government drops from helicopters.

“I believe that to restore credibility to the process, we must move forward to try to immediately ground all aircraft flying in those key areas in order to de-escalate the situation and give a chance for humanitarian assistance to flow unimpeded”, Kerry said on Wednesday. US officials said the attack – the first direct hit on Syrian forces since the civil war began – was accidental and that the warplanes meant to target Islamic State group positions.

The United States and Russian Federation have been leading diplomatic efforts to negotiate a lasting ceasefire and have been discussing how to coordinate attacks on militants from the Islamic State and the group formally known as the Nusra Front.

– On the air strikes that destroyed a Red Crescent convoy in rebel-held territory on Monday: “Those convoys were in the area of the militants, the area under the control of the terrorists”.

The US has directly blamed Russian Federation for the attack on the Aleppo convoy, which Moscow denies.

Mr Assad said he did not believe the American account and said that attack targeted a “huge” area constituting many hills.

“It wasn’t an accident by one airplane”.

“It was not an accident by one airplane; it was four airplanes which kept attacking the position of the Syrian troops for almost one hour or maybe a little bit more than one hour”, Assad told AP, adding they were attacking a large area that “constituted of many hills” adjacent to where the Syrian troops were stationed. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, and once-thriving cities have been ravaged, with entire blocks reduced to rubble. That’s what they should accuse first: “the people or the militants, the terrorists who are responsible for the security of this convoy”, Assad said.

More than 200 raids were carried out, according to Ibrahim al Hajj, a spokesman for the White Helmets, a rescue group operating in rebel-held areas of Syria. “You have to use armaments”.