Clashes erupt as Aleppo evacuation delayed

The planned evacuation of rebel districts of the Syrian city of Aleppo stalled on Wednesday as air strikes and heavy shelling hit the city and Iran was said to have imposed new conditions on the deal.

A ceasefire was declared in Aleppo on Tuesday and buses brought in to ferry people out of the devastated enclave.

Under the evacuation deal, civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo were to be allowed to go to rebel-held areas in northern Syria.

Iran, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's main backers in the battle for Aleppo, wanted a simultaneous evacuation of wounded from the villages of Foua and Kefraya that are besieged by rebels, Reuters news agency said, citing rebel and UN sources.

Rebel groups, who support the deal, reportedly said that was just an excuse to hold up the evacuation, which a pro-opposition TV station said could now be delayed until Thursday.

“The sectarian militias want to resume the massacre in Aleppo and the world has to act to prevent this sectarian slaughter led by Iran,” said Bassam Mustafa, a member of the political council of Noureddine Zinki, one of the main rebel groups in east Aleppo. “The opposition will continue to abide by the agreement.”

Iranian-backed militias on the ground, which led the assault into east Aleppo, are currently blocking it because the deal was reportedly reached without Assad or Iran’s involvement.

According to the Guardian newspaper, Russia and Turkey negotiated the agreement apparently without the Assad regime’s knowledge. The Syrian military initially said it had no knowledge of the deal before backtracking and saying the evacuations would begin on Wednesday.

Evacuations had been due to start at 5:00am local time (4:00am CET), but did not proceed. In spite of the ceasefire, air strikes, shelling and gunfire erupted on Wednesday morning and a monitoring group said the truce appeared to have collapsed. Syrian state television said rebel shelling of the Bustan al-Qasr district, recently recaptured by the army, had killed six people.

"The clashes are violent and bombardment is very heavy... it seems as though everything (the ceasefire) is finished," Rami Abdulrahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group, said.

Eastern Aleppo has been held by the rebels since 2012. However, the rebels have been squeezed into ever smaller areas in recent months by a major government offensive, backed by Russian air power.

In recent days government troops have made sweeping gains, confining the rebels to a small pocket of the city.

Late on Tuesday, Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told an emergency session of the UN Security Council that "military actions in eastern Aleppo are over".

On Tuesday the UN said it had received reliable evidence of summary executions taking place, saying that in four areas 82 civilians were killed by pro-government forces, adding that many more may have died.

The UN and the US said the Syrian government as well as Russia and Iran were accountable for any atrocities committed in the city. Syria's government and Russia said the allegations were untrue.