- Unrelenting assault on Aleppo is called worst yet in Syrian war
- WaPo editorial and Fred Hof on Assad’s assault on Aleppo
- Secretary Kerry defends US policy on Syria
The Syrian regime and its allies pushed ahead with their bombardment of the rebel-held side of Aleppo on Monday despite global condemnation over the newly launched offensive that has killed hundreds in the past several days. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Unfazed by Western accusations of war crimes and barbarity in the ferocious aerial assault on Aleppo, the Syrian government and its Russian ally intensively bombed the northern Syrian metropolis for the fourth consecutive day on Monday. Residents and rescuers there described the bombardment as among the worst yet in the five-year war. – New York Times
Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday faulted the Russian government for continued violence in Syria and for the accompanying collapse of a diplomatic process aimed at eventually solving the more than five-year-long civil war. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Faced with calls to take stronger steps against Russia’s involvement in Syria’s civil war, the White House said Monday that President Obama won’t apologize for pursuing peace. – Washington Times
Two leading senators on defense slammed the Obama administration for its lack of leadership in Syria after a weekend of extreme violence that saw any hope of a cease-fire crumble. – Washington Examiner
Secretary of State John Kerry pushed back Monday on Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s description of him as “intrepid but delusional” for negotiating with Russia over Syria. – The Hill
Two days prior to devastating aerial attacks, Michael Ratney, the U.S. special envoy to Syria, was told the Assad regime was planning to hit the Aleppo facilities of the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer rescue group. – The Daily Beast
[T]he aircraft helping prop up Assad’s forces pale in comparison to the wave of destruction being unleashed across rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Russian aircraft are hitting civilian neighborhoods with incendiary bombs, cluster munitions, and what is thought to be the 1,000-lb. BETAB-500 “bunker buster” bomb. – Foreign Policy
The collapse of the latest Syria ceasefire has heightened the possibility that Gulf states might arm Syrian rebels with shoulder-fired missiles to defend themselves against Syrian and Russian warplanes, U.S. officials said on Monday. - Reuters
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said in a TV interview broadcast Monday that an internationally-brokered cease-fire for Syria is still viable, as rescue workers in Aleppo cleaned up from what they said were the worst airstrikes on rebel-held areas of the northern city in five years. – Associated Press
Editorial: The losers are the civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo — 250,000 to 275,000 human beings — who are cut off from supplies of food and medicine and being bombed mercilessly. They are being offered the same choice the regime has successfully imposed on other towns across the country: surrender or starve. Those who try to approach the evacuation corridors Russia says have been established are shot at. They are, indeed, victims of barbarism — but the rhetoric of U.S. diplomats, and continued petitioning to Mr. Putin, won’t help them much. – Washington Post
Fred Hof writes: President Obama should avoid misleading Mr. Putin. He should also spare his subordinates the misery, humiliation, and frustration of trying to find truth, honor, and decency in the words of Mr. Putin's employees. He should find civilian slaughter in Syria unacceptable, and demand of his defense secretary options for exacting a price of a murderous, cowardly regime currently convinced it can do with absolute impunity as it pleases to children and their parents, where and when it wants. – Atlantic Council
Richard Cohen writes: Aleppo then is like Guernica, a place of carnage. It’s also a symbol of American weakness. The same Putin who mucks around in Syria has filched U.S. emails and barged into the U.S. election. He has kept Crimea and a hunk of Ukraine and may decide tomorrow that the Baltics, once Soviet, need liberating from liberation. He long ago sized up Obama: all brain, no muscle. – Washington Post
The U.S. must consider a no-fly zone and other aggressive actions to prevent an imminent bloodbath in the besieged rebel-held city of Aleppo by Russian and Syrian government forces, the head of civil defense forces known as the “White Helmets” warned on a Washington visit Tuesday. – Washington Times
Among the roughly 250,000 people trapped in the insurgent redoubt of the divided northern Syrian city are 100,000 children, the most vulnerable victims of intensified bombings by Syrian forces and their Russian allies. – New York Times
The incident underscores the difficulties that military commanders face as they conduct an air campaign in a nation where they have little ground presence and where an array of armed factions clash across constantly changing battle lines. – Washington Post
Russian airstrikes helped scupper the cease-fire in Syria. Now, Russian foot-dragging threatens to derail another diplomatic effort by the United States and its allies: sanctioning Damascus for using chemical weapons against its own people. – Foreign Policy
Any hope of reviving a US- and Russian-backed ceasefire agreement in Syria may have been dashed by the air and ground offensives unleashed by the Syrian regime on the rebel-held parts of the western city of Aleppo. – Atlantic Council
In the wake of the failed Syrian cease-fire and the absence of a "Plan B" from the Obama administration, experts say it's time for the U.S. to impose tough new sanctions on both Syria and Russia to finally stop the bloodshed and deepening humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country. – Washington Examiner
As Syrian and Russian forces laid waste to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, nearly 60 House Democrats sent a letter to President Barack Obama calling on him to "persevere in this diplomatic path." - Politico
As Syria’s brief ceasefire collapsed in the wake of the aerial bombardment of Aleppo, Russia has over the past week expanded its military support to the Syrian regime, western officials say. – Financial Times
Foreign states have given Syrian rebels surface-to-surface Grad rockets of a type not previously supplied to them in response to a major Russian-backed offensive in Aleppo, a rebel commander told Reuters on Wednesday. - Reuters
With international diplomacy in tatters and the U.S. focused on its election, the Syrian government and its Russian allies are seizing the moment to wage an all-out campaign to recapture Aleppo, unleashing the most destructive bombing of the past five years and pushing into the center of the Old City. – Associated Press
Ramzi Mardini writes: Mr. Obama should devote his remaining time in office to pressure the Abadi government to build a single military force that is tailored to liberate the rest of Nineveh. That would be an army that reflected the province’s demographics and tribes and had effectively integrated its constituent militia groups under a unified national command. – New York Times