Syria's government recaptures all of Aleppo city

[Anthea]

And what about Bashar Al Asad who, currently, destroyed Aleppo (its hospitals, civilians' places and schools) ? The hugest victims in Syria are Assad and Putin's deeds.

A great many Syrians fled the country due to the jihadists

They may not have the widest selection of weapons but someone is still supplying them

Most of the hospitals were destroyed long before Russia became involved

Rebels and Jihadists have nothing as weapons to compare with Syrian army.

The Syrian government are doing exactly what the Iraqi government is doing

[Piling]

The Iraqi government is not a model but what Syrians do to Aleppo is worse. The Coalition tries to minimize the effect of bombing against civilians. Al Assad targets especially its own population ad he does still 2011, since the beginning of the revolt. He was the first to slaughter Syrians, Jihadists came later.

[Anthea]

Syria conflict: Army 'suspends Aleppo fighting'

Syria's army has suspended combat operations in eastern Aleppo, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says.

The move is to allow for the evacuation of civilians trapped in the battle zone. Mr Lavrov said some 8,000 people would be taken out.

Government forces have retaken 75% of east Aleppo in recent weeks - areas rebels had controlled for four years

A BBC reporter in Aleppo says while fighting appears to have eased, there is no sign it has completely stopped.

The US welcomed the "indication that something positive could happen but we're going to have to wait and see whether those statements are reflected on the ground.

"Our approach to the situation has been to listen carefully to what the Russians say, but scrutinise their actions," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

Mr Lavrov said on the sidelines of a European foreign ministers meeting in Germany: "I can tell you that today, combat operations by the Syrian army have been halted in eastern Aleppo because there is a large operation under way to evacuate civilians."

He also said Russian and US military experts would meet in Geneva on Saturday to discuss ways of bringing an end to the violence in Aleppo.

A US state department spokeswoman confirmed Mr Lavrov had spoken to John Kerry and both had agreed to discuss a ceasefire that allows for the delivery of aid and the departure of civilians, but the "specific nature" of Saturday's technical talks "are still to be worked out".

No sign fighting has stopped: BBC's Lyse Doucet in Aleppo

Russia's announcement comes at a time when tens of thousands of civilians have already been fleeing the fighting on their own, using whatever route they can. We saw a tide of people scrambling through a hole smashed through a wall.

News that the Syrian military has suspended operations to allow for a more orderly evacuation would be good news for tens of thousands of people still trapped inside rebel-held districts.

But while fighting appears to have eased, there's no sign on the ground that it's completely stopped. And pauses only succeed if they're agreed by all sides and there's no sign of that yet.

This week rebel fighters also called for a truce to allow civilians to leave the battlefield. But both sides suspect the other will use any pause to regroup for another round of fighting.

Earlier, a local council leader in Aleppo warned that "150,000 people are condemned to death" in the city.

Brita Haji Hassan, during a visit to UN officials in Geneva, said 800 people had been killed and up to 3,500 injured in the city in the past four weeks.

"We demand a safe passage for civilians to leave and an end to the killing, bombing and bloodbath," he said.

Late on Wednesday, 148 mostly disabled and elderly civilians were evacuated from a former old people's home in the Old City, hours after the area fell to government forces.

They were rescued in a joint operation by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Many had injuries or conditions which left them unable to move, and had been trapped in the home for days.

Eleven others had died before they could be reached, either caught in the crossfire or because of a shortage of medicine, officials said.

The chairman of the UN's humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, praised the Red Cross operation as "heroic" but said evacuations should not "happen like that". He instead called for the establishment of humanitarian corridors.

He told reporters in Geneva that he believed Russia and the US - which back opposing sides in the civil war - were still "poles apart" on agreeing terms.

The UN's envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told reporters in New York on Thursday that he was planning to meet members of US President-elect Donald Trump's team, though he did not say when.

Aleppo was once Syria's largest city and its commercial and industrial hub before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011.

It has been divided in roughly two since mid-2012. But in the past year, Syrian troops have broken the deadlock with the help of Iranian-backed militias and Russian air strikes, reinstating a siege in early September.

Link to Article - Images - Video:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38257013

[Anthea]

Aleppo rebels reduced to small pocket after new loss

Syrian government forces have made major gains in southern Aleppo, state media and activists say, leaving rebels with only a small pocket in the city.

Troops and allied militiamen took full control of the districts of Sheikh Saeed and Saliheen on Monday.

The rebels have now lost more than 90% of the territory they once held in eastern Aleppo in less than a month

Tens of thousands of people are thought to be still living under siege there, with virtually no food or water.

Russia, which backs the government, says more than 100,000 civilians have been displaced by the fighting - including 13,300 in the past 24 hours

2,200 rebel fighters have surrendered

Aleppo was once Syria's largest city and its commercial and industrial hub before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011.

For much of the past four years it has been divided roughly in two, with the government controlling the western half and rebels the east.

Troops finally broke the deadlock with the help of Iranian-backed militias and Russian air strikes, reinstating a siege on the east in early September and launching an all-out assault weeks later.

On Monday, the official Sana news agency cited a military source as saying the army had taken full control of the districts of Sheikh Saad, Shahadin, Karam al-Afandi, Karam al-Daadaa and Saliheen.

The source added that army units were pushing into Kallasa, Bustan al-Qasr and Souq al-Hal, and "chasing down" rebels to Sukkari, Mashhad, Amariya and Ansari.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that monitors the civil war through a network of sources on the ground, confirmed that Sheikh Saad and Saliheen had fallen but said there was still fighting in Karam al-Daadaa, as well as in neighbouring Fardous.

The group's director, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP news agency that the areas still under rebel control were "very small" and that "they could fall at any moment".

"The battle for Aleppo has begun to enter the final phase," he said.

In an interview with the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, an English teacher inside one of the remaining rebel-held areas, described the conditions as terrible.

"The situation inside the eastern part of Aleppo is literally doomsday," Abdul Kafi Alhamado said. "Bombs are everywhere, people are running, people are injured in the streets, no-one can dare go to help them, some people are under the rubble."

Russia has said it is consulting with the United States, which backs the opposition, on the terms of a ceasefire that would follow a full withdrawal of rebel fighters from Aleppo. However, there have been no signs of an agreement so far.

"The Russians are being evasive. They are looking at the military situation. Now they are advancing," Zakaria Malahifji, an official in the Fastaqim rebel group, told Reuters news agency.

The Syrian Observatory says that at least 415 civilians and 364 rebel fighters have been killed in rebel-held areas since 15 November. Another 130 civilians have died in rebel rocket and mortar attacks on the government-controlled west.

Link to Photos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38288018

[Piling]

Now Asad has taken Aleppo and the big butchery is starting : no one is safe. Asad Militias will clean all the streets with blood.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/12/middl ... index.html

[Anthea]

Battle of Aleppo ends after years of fighting as rebels agree to withdraw

Rebel resistance in Syria's Aleppo ended on Tuesday after years of fighting and months of bitter siege and bombardment that culminated in a bloody collapse of their defenses this week, as insurgents agreed to withdraw in a ceasefire.

Rebel officials said fighting would end on Tuesday evening and insurgents and the civilians who have been trapped in the tiny pocket of territory they hold in Aleppo would leave the city for opposition-held areas of the countryside to the west.

News of the deal, confirmed by Russia's U.N. envoy, came after the United Nations voiced deep concern about reports it had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east Aleppo districts. It accused them of "slaughter".

"My latest information is that they indeed have an arrangement achieved on the ground that the fighters are going to leave the city," Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters. It could happen "within hours maybe", he said.

A surrender or withdrawal of the rebels from Aleppo would mean the end of the rebellion in the city, Syria's largest until the outbreak of war after mass protests in 2011.

By finally dousing the last embers of resistance burning in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's military coalition of the army, Russian air power and Iran-backed militias will have delivered him his biggest battlefield victory of the war.

However, while the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, will suffer a crushing defeat in Aleppo, the war will be far from over.

"The crushing of Aleppo, the immeasurably terrifying toll on its people, the bloodshed, the wanton slaughter of men, women and children, the destruction – and we are nowhere near the end of this cruel conflict," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said in a statement.

"MELTDOWN OF HUMANITY"

The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo has sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a "complete meltdown of humanity".

"The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes," said U.N. spokesman Rupert Colville. "There could be many more."

The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and its main ally Russia said on Tuesday rebels had "kept over 100,000 people as human shields".

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon briefed the 15-member U.N. Security Council at 12 p.m. (1700 GMT) at the request of Britain and France. France said it had called for a meeting to focus on possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.

Colville said the rebel-held area was "a hellish corner" of less than a square kilometer, adding its capture was imminent.

The Syrian army and its allies could declare victory at any moment, a Syrian military source had said, predicting the final fall of the rebel enclave on Tuesday or Wednesday, after insurgent defenses collapsed on Monday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-midea ... SKBN1420H5

[Anthea]

Syria's government recaptures all of Aleppo city

Damascus announces complete victory in the battle to retake eastern Aleppo from rebels.

The Syrian army announced the country's second city Aleppo has been fully recaptured from rebel fighters, the government's biggest victory in the nearly six-year civil war.

The last group of rebels and their families holed up in a small enclave in eastern Aleppo were evacuated on Thursday, under a deal that gives the army and its allies full control of the ancient city after years of fighting.

"Thanks to the blood of our heroic martyrs, the heroic deeds and sacrifices of our armed forces and the allied forces, and the steadfastness of our people, the General Command of the Army and the Armed Forces announces the return of security and stability to Aleppo," said a military statement read by an army general on state television.

The statement said the victory in Aleppo is a "strategic transformation and a turning point in the war on terrorism and a deadly blow to the terrorist project and its supporters".

It is a further incentive, it added, to go on fighting to "eradicate terrorism and restore security and stability to every span of the homeland".

It represents a momentous victory for President Bashar al-Assad and a crushing defeat for Syria's opposition.

Western Aleppo erupted in celebratory gunfire seen on Syrian TV, which showed uniformed soldiers and civilians shouting slogans in support of Assad.

The ancient city of Aleppo had been divided into rebel and government parts since 2012.

The announcement came shortly after state television reported that the last convoy carrying rebels and civilians had left eastern Aleppo.

"The last four buses carrying terrorists and their families arrived in Ramussa", a district south of Aleppo controlled by government forces, the channel said.

Rebel evacuations were set in motion last week after Syria's opposition agreed to surrender its last footholds in eastern Aleppo. Since then, some 35,000 fighters and civilians have been bused out, according to the United Nations.

Ahmed Qorra Ali, an official with the rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, confirmed "the last convoy has left the rebel-controlled area".

Earlier, the Red Cross said more than 4,000 fighters had left rebel-held areas of the city in the "last stages" of the evacuation.

Rebel forces agreed to withdraw from the bastion after a month-long army offensive that drove them from more than 90 percent of their former territory.

The evacuation agreement was brokered by Russia, which launched air strikes in support of Assad's regime last year, and Turkey, which has supported some rebel groups.

The loss of east Aleppo is the biggest blow to Syria's rebel movement since fighting started in March 2011. More than 310,000 people have been killed since then.

It puts the government in control of the country's five main cities: Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Damascus, and Latakia.

"The liberation of Aleppo is not only a victory for Syria but also for those who really contribute to the fight against terrorism, notably Russia and Iran," state news agency SANA quoted President Assad as saying before the army announcement on Thursday.

The Syrian government's recapture of Aleppo is a major turning point in the Syrian civil war with potentially powerful political repercussions.

"On the political level, this is a great loss," Yasser al-Youssef of the Nureddin al-Zinki rebel group told AFP news agency. "For the revolution, it is a period of retreat and a difficult turning point."

Referring to Assad's closest allies, Ali of the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group said: "Aleppo is now under the occupation of Russia and Iran."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/s ... 28465.html