SyriaU.S.: UN should investigate war crimes committed by Russia, Syria in Aleppo

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the military campaign by Russia and Syria against civilians in Aleppo amounts to a war crime, and that the UN must launch a war crime investigation into the two countries’ actions.

Military analysts noted that the Russian and Syrian campaign aims not only to kill civilians directly by dropping barrel bombs on Sunni neighborhood: Assad and his Russian allies deliberately increase the death toll by using bunker-busting munitions systematically to destroy the city’s civilian infrastructure — hospitals, clinics, water treatment facilities, and power stations.

The analysts say that Assad’s ultimate goal is to make life in the city impossible, thus forcing hundreds of thousands of Sunnis to flee, making it easier for his Alawite and Shi’a forces to control the city once they recapture it from the rebels.

DW reports that Kerry’s remarks come after a series of hospital bombings in the war-torn country.

“Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting hospitals, and medical facilities, and women and children,” Kerry said, speaking alongside French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in Washington. 

He added that the actions “beg for an appropriate investigation of war crimes.”

“They are beyond the accidental now, way beyond, years beyond” Kerry said, saying: “This is a targeted strategy to terrorize civilians and to kill anybody and everybody who is in the way of their military objectives.”

Kerry’s comments came ahead of a weekend emergency United Nations Security Council vote on imposing a draft resolution submitted by France on a ceasefire in Syria.

“Tomorrow will be a moment of truth, a moment of truth for all the members of the Security Council,” Ayrault said on Friday alongside Kerry. “Do you want a ceasefire in Aleppo, yes or no? And the question is in particular for our Russian partner.”

Earlier this week, the State Department announced that the United States would suspend contacts with Russia after Syria and Russia broke the 9 September ceasefire agreement, which Kerry and Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov had reached a few days earlier.

“This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments … and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed.” 

“Russia and the Syrian regime have chosen to pursue a military course, inconsistent with the Cessation of Hostilities,” he said, “as demonstrated by their intensified attacks against civilian areas, targeting of critical infrastructure such as hospitals, and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in need, including through the September 19 attack on a humanitarian aid convoy.” 

On Friday, Russia’s lower house of parliament unanimously approved a treaty with Syria which would allow Russian troops to remain in the country indefinitely.