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U.N. Investigators Say Syria Struck Aid Convoy and Call Act a War Crime
U.N. Investigators Say Syria Bombed Convoy and Did So Deliberately
(about 2 hours later)
GENEVA — The Syrian Air Force deliberately bombed a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy in September in a “meticulously planned” attack that amounted to a war crime, United Nations investigators said on Wednesday in a report detailing a range of war crimes on both sides.
GENEVA — First the Syrian air force dropped barrel bombs from helicopters on a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy, then fired rockets from jets, then strafed survivors with machine guns, United Nations investigators said Wednesday in a report that found government forces not only had committed the attack in September but had done so deliberately, a war crime.
The attack on the convoy, which killed 14 aid workers and stoked international outrage, was “one of the most egregious” in a five-month government offensive to take full control of Aleppo, a major Syrian city, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in the report, which it plans to present this month to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The attack, which killed 14 aid workers and stoked international outrage, was “meticulously planned” and “ruthlessly carried out,” the report said.
Government aircraft carried out repeated attacks with barrel bombs laced with chlorine gas in the five months covered by the report, from July 21 to Dec. 22, violating an international ban on chemical weapons, the commission said.
It called the attack “one of the most egregious” of many war crimes that investigators said had been committed during the government’s five-month offensive to take full control of the northern city of Aleppo.
For months, the Syrian and Russian air forces relentlessly bombarded eastern Aleppo as part of a strategy to force surrender,” the commission’s chairman, Paulo Pinheiro, told reporters in Geneva. He added: “The deliberate targeting of civilians has resulted in the immense loss of human life, including hundreds of children.”
The report, by a United Nations commission of inquiry that has been monitoring Syria’s conflict for years, is one of the most hard-hitting official assessments yet.
Armed opposition groups also committed war crimes by indiscriminately shelling residential areas of government-held Aleppo with inaccurate, improvised mortars, killing dozens of civilians, including women and children, the report said, adding that the rebels had also committed abuses against civilians in the areas they controlled.
Its account of the convoy attack went much further than findings of a United Nations inquiry set up by then-Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, which concluded in December that the convoy had been bombed from the air but did not identify the attackers.
Russian aircraft joined the Syrians in conducting almost daily airstrikes over the five months in an indiscriminate bombing campaign that killed hundreds of civilians, and repeatedly targeted hospitals, water stations, markets and bakeries, suggesting “a willful disregard” for the international laws of war, the commission said.
But the panel’s researchers found no information to support suggestions that Russia had used chemical weapons, and they did not receive sufficiently clear evidence to tie Russian forces to the war crimes detailed in the report.
That finding underscored the difficult task that faced investigators as they compiled the report which drew on 291 interviews, many of them conducted remotely with former residents of Aleppo who were still in Syria. The report also drew on satellite imagery, medical records and communications with governments and nongovernmental organizations.
The commission’s report, its 13th on the conflict and one of the most hard-hitting, followed a directive by the Human Rights Council in October to identify those responsible for abuses in the battle for Aleppo and to speed the process of bringing perpetrators of war crimes to justice.
Just how hard that will prove to be was underscored on Tuesday, when Russia and China vetoed a resolution in the Security Council that would have punished Syria for its use of chemical weapons in 2014 and 2015 by imposing sanctions on some senior military officials and government bodies.
The panel’s findings come at a sensitive moment: The United Nations envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is striving to persuade the Syrian government and the opposition to engage constructively in peace talks in Geneva. Mr. de Mistura wants the negotiations to focus on a process of political transition.
A weekend suicide attack on Syrian military headquarters in the city of Homs had already raised a potential hurdle for talks, prompting government negotiators to insist that the issue of terrorism would top the agenda. They have used that position to stall discussion of political reforms in three previous rounds of Geneva peace talks.
The Commission of Inquiry’s unequivocal finding of war crimes committed by both Syrian government forces and the opposition could further complicate Mr. de Mistura’s quest for compromise.
In its account of the aid convoy attack, the commission went much further than a board of inquiry set up by former Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The board’s full findings were not made public but its summary report released in December confirmed only that the convoy had been bombed from the air and it did not identify the attackers.
The Commission of Inquiry said the types of munitions used, the wide extent of the area targeted and the long duration of the assault “strongly suggest the attack was ruthlessly carried out by the Syrian Air Force to purposefully hinder the delivery of humanitarian aid and target aid workers, constituting the war crimes of deliberately attacking humanitarian relief personnel, denial of humanitarian aid and targeting civilians.”
The 31-truck convoy organized by the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent had been carrying food, medicine, children’s clothes and other humanitarian supplies destined for families in opposition-controlled areas and had been traveling with the government’s knowledge and permission.
The 31-truck convoy organized by the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent had been carrying food, medicine, children’s clothes and other humanitarian supplies destined for families in opposition-controlled areas and had been traveling with the government’s knowledge and permission.
The attack came an hour after the Syrian military declared an end to a fragile, week-old cease-fire and was carried out in three stages by helicopters and Sukhoi fighter jets, the commission reported. Helicopters dropped barrel bombs, then fighter jets attacked with rockets, cluster munitions and other high explosive munitions, the commission said.
The government of President Bashar al-Assad had no immediate comment on the new report, but it has repeatedly denied responsibility for the convoy assault or any other war crimes in the conflict, which Mr. Assad regards as a battle against terrorism.
After exhausting supplies of those weapons, the aircraft returned to strafe the area with machine guns. No international coalition aircraft were using weapons within 50 kilometers, about 35 miles, of the attack, and no Russian aircraft were nearby, the report said.
Syrian officials and their Russian allies have suggested that insurgents were responsible for hitting the convoy, or perhaps even warplanes from the American-led coalition that has been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria. The Americans, who operate in areas far from the convoy assault site, have called such suggestions absurd.
The Syrian Air Force carried out strikes on eastern Aleppo using chlorine bombs throughout 2016, the commission reported, but its investigators said, they had received “an alarming number” of accusations of the use of the chemical after September, as the battle for Aleppo intensified.
The report released Wednesday found that war crimes had been committed by government and rebel forces, corroborating many of the worst allegations that Aleppo residents had made against both sides.
Chlorine, a common industrial chemical that can kill, is not by itself illegal. But the Chemical Weapons Convention forbids the use of such toxins to kill or injure.
For months, the Syrian forces and their Russian allies bombarded eastern Aleppo as part of a strategy to force surrender, the commission’s chairman, Paulo Pinheiro, told reporters in Geneva, expressing frustration that the Syrian government had not cooperated with the investigation.
The commission presented details of attacks that took place in September, October and December, some targeting hospitals and health facilities, observing that the government’s use of chemical weapons had followed the pattern of such attacks in 2014 and 2015.
Mr. Pinheiro denounced what he called “the deliberate targeting of civilians” that killed many, including hundreds of children.
The commission said “Syrian and/or Russian forces” had “pervasively used” cluster munitions, which release hundreds of small bomblets, as well as other banned munitions such as incendiary weapons. The use of those indiscriminate weapons in civilian areas constituted a war crime, the commission said, but investigators did not receive the hard proof of the Russian forces’ involvement in specific strikes that was needed to tie them to war crimes.
The Syrian government and Russia mainly used unguided, indiscriminate munitions on civilian areas, killing 300 people, including 96 children, in the first four days of a September offensive alone, the report said.
“We continue to investigate and we will attribute if and when we can prove it but we are not in a position to do this,” Mr. Pinheiro said.
The report found that government forces had hit hospitals; used internationally banned chlorine gas and cluster munitions; arrested fleeing civilians; and carried out summary executions, with some soldiers killing their own relatives.
As pro-government forces moved into eastern Aleppo in the closing stages of their offensive, some forces carried out summary executions, including reprisals in which Syrian soldiers killed family members who had supported rebel groups, the commission said, but it did not find evidence of a massacre or of widespread killings.
On the other side, the report found that rebel groups had indiscriminately shelled government-held civilian areas with no specific military target, killing dozens, including women and children. In rebel areas, the report said, some groups prevented people from evacuating and discriminated in food distribution during a siege, favoring relatives and supporters.
In addition to the opposition’s continuous and indiscriminate shelling of government-held western Aleppo, the commission said some armed rebel groups had committed abuses against the population under their control.
Strikingly, the report also found that evacuations of besieged civilians from rebel-held eastern Aleppo and from the government-held towns of Fouaa and Kfarya during the battle constituted the war crime of forced displacement, because residents had no choice and were moved for “strategic reasons,” not safety.
Rebels prevented civilians in some districts of eastern Aleppo from leaving, in effect keeping them as human shields. As pro-government forces tightened a siege on the east, some rebel groups withheld scarce supplies of food for their followers and family members, which was also a war crime, the commission said.
The report could further complicate the challenges facing a special United Nations mediator, Staffan de Mistura, who is seeking to bring government and opposition representatives together in Geneva to discuss a political settlement.
Global powers that back opposing sides in the six-year-old conflict still find themselves unable to agree on basic facts, let alone hold war crime perpetrators accountable.
The report found that government aircraft repeatedly used chlorine bombs in Aleppo, violating a global treaty banning chemical weapons that Syria has signed. Just a day before the report was released, Russia and China vetoed a Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on some senior Syrian military officials and government bodies for using chemical weapons earlier in the conflict.
And the illegal tactics outlined in the report have appeared to continue throughout the week, further undermining the fragile efforts in Geneva. Airstrikes have crippled hospitals in Idlib and the Damascus suburbs. Heavy bombardment has hit civilian areas in Douma and the Homs suburb of Al Waer.
The strikes in Al Waer were said to have been in response to an attack by gunmen and suicide bombers on two security headquarters facilities in Homs, which killed 42 people. The hard-line Islamist group Tahrir al-Sham, a coalition that includes Syria’s Qaeda affiliate and is not a party to the talks in Geneva, claimed responsibility.
The United Nations researchers found no evidence that Russia had used chemical weapons. They also did not receive sufficiently clear evidence to directly tie Russian forces to any war crimes described in the report.
But they said Russian aircraft had joined the Syrian air force in using indiscriminate weapons in a deadly campaign that repeatedly targeted hospitals, water distribution stations, markets and bakeries and suggested “a willful disregard” for the international laws of war.
Government aircraft, the commission said, had carried out repeated attacks with barrel bombs laced with chlorine gas in the five months covered by the report, from July 21 to Dec. 22, violating an international ban on chemical weapons.
The report drew on 291 interviews, many conducted remotely with former residents of Aleppo still in Syria, as well as satellite imagery, medical records and communications with governments and nongovernmental organizations.
The commission report, its 13th on the conflict, followed a directive by the Human Rights Council in October to identify those responsible for abuses in the battle for Aleppo.
