Dienstag, 27.02.2018 / 21:46 Uhr

Ghouta: Die Aleppo Strategie

Von
Aus dem Netz

Russland hat es angekündigt, sie setzen es um: Die in Aleppo erfolgreich angewandte Strategie.

Trying to shift pressure onto the opposition in besieged and bombarded East Ghouta, near Syria’s capital Damascus, Russia is pursuing a version of the strategy used for the capitulation of eastern Aleppo city in December 2016.

Moscow faced a possible diplomatic challenge after it refused to accept a defined ceasefire for the area with more than 350,000 people, supporting a UN Security Council resolution only when a timetable for implementation was removed. That maneuver is allowing pro-Assad forces to continue attacks in which more than 600 people have been killed and thousands wounded since February 18. (...)

Yesterday Putin responded by ordering a daily “humanitarian pause” from 9 am to 2 pm in the territory, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Putin’s order did not offer any check to attack the other 19 hours of the day, and it made no commitment to allow assistance into the area, where scores of people died from lack of food and medicine even before the recent surge in the pro-Assad assault.

Instead, the Defense Ministry said civilians could leave via “evacuation corridors”.

Moscow pursued the same tactics in and near opposition-held eastern Aleppo city in 2016. After establishing a siege from July and continuously bombing targets, including medical facilities and a UN aid convoy, Russia held back any freeze on the assault by proposing the “humanitarian pauses” for a portion of each day and by proclaiming the “humanitarian corridors”.

The pro-Assad attacks, including Russian warplanes, continued on eastern Aleppo, and the corridors never materialized. Instead, the opposition finally surrendered in December, with an estimated 50,000 people removed from the city to other parts of Syria and many men who remained taken into detention or forced into conscription in the Assad regime’s military.