Assad defies UN cease-fire vote to rain more bombs on civilians

The Syrian regime dropped more bombs on civilians in Eastern Ghouta on Sunday in defiance of Saturday’s UN cease-fire resolution. (AFP)

BEIRUT/DOUMA: Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime on Sunday defied a UN Security Council cease-fire resolution and dropped more bombs on civilians in the besieged Damascus enclave of Eastern Ghouta.
Airstrikes and artillery killed nine people and injured 31, although the bombing was less intense than attacks over the past week, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Iran also said pro-regime forces would press ahead with attacks on the opposition-held suburb, as ground fighting raged on there despite Saturday night’s resolution demanding a 30-day truce across the country to allow for aid access and medical evacuations.
Turkey, too, said its military operations in the northern region of Afrin would not be affected by the unanimous Security Council vote.
Signaling the war remained a top focus of world leaders, the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin and French and German counterparts Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel spoke by phone and discussed the cease-fire’s implementation.
They called on Russia “to exercise maximum pressure on the Syrian regime to achieve an immediate suspension of air raids and fighting,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office said.
Iranian military chief of staff Gen. Mohammed Baqeri said Tehran and Damascus would respect the UN resolution, but he claimed the truce did not cover parts of the Damascus suburbs “held by the terrorists.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has described Eastern Ghouta under the bombardment as “hell on Earth,” said the cease-fire must be “immediately” implemented.
In Eastern Ghouta, news of the UN vote was greeted with a shrug. “I don’t think this decision will be implemented. It will be respected neither by the regime nor Russia,” said Douma resident Abu Mazen.
“We can’t trust Russia or the regime. We are used to their betrayals.”
The two major radical factions in Eastern Ghouta waged fierce battles on Sunday on several fronts. Hamza Birqdar, Jaish Al-Islam’s military spokesman, said the militants thwarted attempts by regime forces and Iran-backed militias to advance.
“In the early hours today, there were heated battles which Assad’s forces launched,” said Wael Olwan, spokesman for Failaq Al-Rahman. “They tried to storm the eastern frontlines. The bombing is ongoing at this moment.”
Russia was counting on foreign supporters of anti-regime forces to ensure that the cease-fire was observed, the foreign ministry in Moscow said.
Moscow has blamed Nusra fighters from Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch for provoking the situation in Eastern Ghouta. Both main insurgent factions in turn accuse their enemies of using the presence of a few hundred radical combatants as a pretext for attacks.
Ghouta fighters shelled parts of Damascus, and an army unit destroyed a rigged vehicle that militants tried to send into the capital on Saturday, a Syrian military source said.