Aleppo bleeds as US and Russia spar

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Moscow was interested in a proposal made by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura about escorting ex-Nusra fighters out of Aleppo.
Lavrov, speaking at a news conference after meeting French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, said Russian officials were carefully studying de Mistura’s idea. 
France’s foreign minister told Russia there was no justification for the fierce assault on Aleppo, as Moscow said it was ready to “work on” a French-drafted UN resolution seeking to allow aid into the besieged city.
“What is happening in Aleppo is without precedent — nothing can justify such a deluge of fire and of death,” Jean-Marc Ayrault said after meeting Lavrov in Moscow. “I met Sergei Lavrov to tell him face to face that no one can tolerate this situation.”
Tensions between Russia and the US have spiked after Washington suspended talks over a cease-fire on Monday in protest at Moscow stepping up its air campaign in support of a ferocious offensive against rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo.
The US State Department acknowledged that Secretary of State John Kerry had called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss Syria despite the announcement.
“Engagement remains,” US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
“What we talked about the other day was bilateral engagement with regard to Syria. That remains suspended, but it doesn’t preclude the Secretary of State and Foreign Minister Lavrov from talking.”
The UN has released satellite images showing most recent destruction of Aleppo. Officials with the UN’s satellite imagery program say new pictures show “an awful lot of new damage” — presumably by airstrikes.
Lars Bromley of UNOSAT says the commercial images from Digital Globe, obtained by the UN agency through an arrangement with the US State Department, show mostly “formerly blasted and blown-up areas” during Syria’s 5-1/2-year war “experiencing a great deal of additional damage.” He said in Geneva: “To a certain extent you’re looking at rubble being pushed around.”
The images mostly show before-and-after pictures from mid to late September showing destruction of buildings, including homes, after the breakdown of a short-lived US and Russia-brokered cease-fire.
President Bashar Assad said his forces would recapture all of Syria, including Aleppo, in a television interview on Thursday but added he would prefer to do so using local deals and amnesties that would allow rebels to leave for other areas.
According to the transcript of an interview with Denmark’s TV 2, he said there were no moderate rebels and that the US was using the Nusra Front, which changed its name in July and broke allegiance to Al-Qaeda, as “a card” in Syria’s war.

Source: Arab News