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by James Tweedie
SYRIAN troops and Palestinian militia advanced under heavy air cover in Aleppo yesterday as the UN security council argued over its response.
Soldiers and the locally recruited al-Quds Brigade battled CIA-armed terrorists of Nour el-Din al-Zinki for control of Handarat Palestinian refugee camp in the city’s north.
Syrian and Russian aircraft flew more than 55 air raids against insurgent positions in the area their supply and reinforcement routes to the south.
The battle began on Saturday, with troops quickly overrunning most of the district. But the extremists launched a strong counter-attack before the army could dig in, recapturing most of the area.
Nour el-Din al-Zinki, which was funded by the US during 2014 and 2015, brutally beheaded 12-year-old Palestinian boy Abdullah Tayseer al-Issa in July.
Meanwhile in New York an urgent UN security council on the offensive was called at the request of Britain, the US and France.
But with Syria’s allies Russia and China holding a veto on the council any agreement on intervention was unlikely.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault claimed Russia and Iran would be accomplices to war crimes if they did not put pressure on Syria to halt its operation.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson went further, accusing Russia of war crimes over the September 19 destruction of a Red Cross aid convoy — in which no country’s involvement has been proven — and saying the West has been “too impotent in its response.”
On Saturday, former Syrian prime minster Riyad Hijab, now president of the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee, called for US military intervention in Aleppo.
And yesterday, 33 guerilla factions rejected peace talks “under the present conditions” and Russian mediation as “partner to the regime in the crimes against our people.”
Al-Qaida affiliated Jund al-Aqsa captured the majority-Allawite town of Maan in northern Hama on Saturday after weeks of fighting.
The US belatedly declared the group a terrorist organisation last week, citing its 2014 massacre of 21 people — 14 of them women — in Maan.
