Aid workers killed in Syria as truce comes to an end

A monitoring group on Monday night said 12 aid workers and truck drivers were killed when their humanitarian aid convoy was hit by air strikes in Aleppo province. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists inside the country, reported the casualty figures.

Jan Egeland, humanitarian aid co-ordinator in the office of the UN envoy for Syria, said that the Syrian Red Crescent convoy carrying UN supplies had been "bombarded".

“It is outrageous that it was hit while offloading at warehouses,” he added.

At least 18 of 31 trucks in a United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid convoy – delivering assistance for 78,000 people in the hard-to-reach town of Urm al-Kubra – were hit west of Aleppo.

United Nations special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura voiced outrage at the attack on trucks bound for Aleppo.

“Our outrage at this attack is enormous . . . the convoy was the outcome of a long process of permission and preparations to assist isolated civilians,” Mr de Mistura said.

The perpetrators of the attack were not known.

Joint military strikes

Syria’s army announced on Monday that a US-

Russia

brokered ceasefire had expired and gave no indication that it would be renewed, casting doubt on the survival of a plan by the two powers to launch joint military strikes against jihadi forces in the country.

Both President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and the rebels seeking to end his rule have accused each other of undermining the ceasefire. The deal is part of a multi-stage plan intended to begin with the truce and allowing the entry of humanitarian aid.

After seven days of continuous ceasefire – a deadline that would have been reached on Monday – Washington and Moscow then planned to begin coordinated attacks on jihadi groups that have exploited the chaos in Syria’s six-year war to seize territory.

“This regime of calm was supposed to be a real opportunity to stop the bloodshed, but the armed terrorist groups flouted this agreement,” the army said in a statement. The Assad government describes nearly all armed groups opposing its rule as “terrorists”.

Rebels also said they believed the ceasefire was probably over.

"It is now clear that the regime and Russia from the first day were not committed to the ceasefire," said Yasser Alyousef, a spokesman for the opposition's Nour al-Din al-Zinki brigades. "This is pushing us back to the military solutions."

The already shaky ceasefire deal was soured on Saturday when US-led coalition forces targeting Islamic State, also known as Isis, said they had accidentally struck regime forces, killing more than 60 soldiers.

– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016, additional reporting: Reuters)