Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
Syria: Al-Qaida affiliate rejects UN call to lay down arms

SYRIA’S al-Qaida affiliate rejected UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura’s call for them to lay down their arms in Aleppo yesterday.

Hossam al-Shafai of the Levant Conquest Front (LCF) — the rebranded Nusra Front — tweeted the group was “determined to break” Syrian troops’ siege.

Mr De Mistura pledged safe passage to the fundamentalists on Thursday if they would allow remaining civilians held hostage by the LCF to go in peace.

Dozens of people, mainly women and children, took advantage of the government’s amnesty and reduced air raids yesterday to flee the battleground.

Meanwhile two civilians, one a child, were killed and six more injured in the latest indiscriminate militant shelling of the government-held west of Aleppo. Eight died and 58 were injured on Thursday.

In the south-east of the city troops captured the strategic Sheikh Saeed hill overlooking the insurgent-occupied east.

Damascus is said to be keen to win the crucial battle for Aleppo before the end of US President Barack Obama’s tenure on January 20, presenting his successor with a fait accompli and rendering talk of Western military intervention by a hawkish Hillary Clinton moot.

The UN security council was set to meet last night at Russia’s request to discuss the situation in Syria, holding out some hope of a return to peace talks.

But French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault demanded a vote today on an immediate unilateral ceasefire in Aleppo and a no-fly zone, calls guaranteed to meet with a Russian veto.

Meanwhile Russia’s parliament ratified a treaty with Syria allowing indefinite deployment of its forces there.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
A Turkish missile is fired at Kurdish forces in Afrin
World / 9 February 2018
9 February 2018
United States / 9 February 2018
9 February 2018
South America / 9 February 2018
9 February 2018
South Africa / 8 February 2018
8 February 2018
Similar stories
INTENTIONS ABOUT TO BE TESTED: Members from Bashar Assad’s
Features / 18 December 2024
18 December 2024
Following the sudden collapse of the Assad government, foreign powers and Islamist militias carve up the nation while Israel continues to drop bombs and expand its illegal occupation. Secular democracy is now a faded dream, writes LIBERATION