World

US: Russian aircraft believed to hit Syria convoy

Washington: US reached the first conclusion that the Russian fighter planes attacked an aid convoy and warehouse belonging to Syrian Arab red Crescent, two officials told CNN.

One of the officials said that all the evidence were pointing towards the Russia. The White House has said that Russia is responsible for the strike.

Aid is seen strewn across the floor in the town of Orum al-Kubra on the western outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on September 20, 2016, the morning after a convoy delivering aid was hit by a deadly air strike. The UN said at least 18 trucks in the 31-vehicle convoy were destroyed en route to deliver humanitarian assistance to the hard-to-reach town. / AFP PHOTO / Omar haj kadour

The aid convoy was hit on Monday night in the area of Urum al-Kubra, west of Aleppo, prompting the United Nations to halt its aid operations in Syria.
On Tuesday, Deputy National Security Adviser – Ben Rhodes said that All of our information indicates that this attack was an airstrike. That means there only could have been two entities responsible naming the Syrian regime and Moscow. Ben did not specify which country’s planes carried out the strike.
Referring to the terms of a recent ceasefire brokered between the US and Russia, Rhodes said that We hold the Russian government responsible for airstrikes in this airspace given their commitment under the cessation of hostilities was to ground-air operations where humanitarian assistance was flowing.
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Russia in Denial Mode

Russia denies it totally and said that the terrorists carried out the attack.

Spokesman of Russian Defense Ministry – Igor Konashenkov said on Tuesday that according to the Russian state news site TASS, video footage from drones of the strike show that militants were following the aid convoy.
He said that it is clearly seen in the video that a pickup truck of terrorists with a towed large-caliber mortar is moving along with the convoy.

 
UN Outrage:
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the attack – savage, sickening and apparently deliberate.
Convening at the UN General Assembly annual meeting Tuesday, Ban told world leaders that just when we think it cannot get any worse, the power of depravity sinks lower.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said that around 20 civilians were killed in this attack including the director of the Red Crescent’s Urum al-Kubra branch – Omar Barakat.
UN said that 18 out of 31 convoy trucks were hit. The aid was intended for eastern Aleppo, where an estimated 250,000 civilians have been short of medicine, water and food.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that aid workers had been killed in an air attack.

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