Thursday, April 28, 2016

The assault against Aleppo has been ongoing. The bombing of the hospital is tragic, but, with the USA bombing a hospital in Afghanistan, there isn't much room to criticize.

The red marker is Aleppo and the island is Cyrus. This instability is very near Europe. Turkey is just north of that white border line. The coastal Syrian land is where the Alawites had lived before the fighting forced them out of the area. Assad probably wants to stabilize Aleppo, hence bring the Alawite refugees back to their land. That is my best guess.


February 7, 2016
By Tim Lester
...Last week, (click here) the regime of Bashar al-Assad, supported by Iranian and Lebanese Shia militia, severed the main road from Aleppo to the Turkish border, a narrow corridor through which the rebels and NGOs alike moved supplies. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that several villages in the area were hit by airstrikes on Sunday.
A defining battle for Aleppo, Syria's largest city before the war, seems imminent. Regime forces and their allies on the ground, supported by Russian bombers in the air, are tightening the noose around the eastern half of the city, still held by a coalition of rebel groups. It's estimated some 320,000 people still live, or subsist, there -- under continual bombardment....

It would be far better if the civil war ended and a governance established. The West can pretend to have an enemy in Assad, but, what the region needs is stability and not quibbling over who is going to establishment it. It's not like there is an alternative. There needs to be stability and as soon as possible. The reason this hospital was effected is because the government forces are moving into the area for a final push.

I realize Doctors without Borders performs the impossible. But, sometimes the impossible is impossible.

One the dust settles and hopefully people return to attempt to RESETTLE Aleppo they will need hospitals. I am sure this was more than tragic from both sides of the military movement into the city.
Rescuers (click here) search the rubble of the MSF-supported al-Quds hospital in Aleppo after a series of airstrikes pummeled the besieged Syrian city on Wednesday evening. Screenshot courtesy of euronews

April 28, 2016
By Andrew V. Pestano

Aleppo -- Doctors Without Borders said its hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo was destroyed by an airstrike that killed at least 27 patients and doctors.
The organization -- known officially as Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF -- has sharply condemned the Wednesday airstrike that local sources are blaming on Russia or the Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad. MSF warns the death toll is expected to rise.
"We are outraged at the destruction of Al-Quds hospital in Aleppo, Syria," MSF said in a statement. "The destroyed MSF-supported hospital in Aleppo had an [emergency room], an [out-patient department], intensive care unit and an operating theater. All now destroyed."
No official comment or claim of responsibility has been made over the bombing. One of the city's last pediatricians was killed....

There is always the possibility ti was purely decided on ethnicity. If there is a way of knowing it was a planned strike on Sunnis, it would take on a somewhat different light. The fact this civil war is along religious lines makes it somewhat difficult assessment.

This picture to the right is when Aleppo's market was intact and the center of life and economy. Perhaps re-establishing the market would bring back some degree of order in their lives. It would help distribute foods and water. The promise of survival is a strong force for peace.

Aleppo is the largest city in Syria. In that is the strategic definition. There is over 2 million people in Aleppo. A large percentage of Allepo is rubble. (click here) It will be a challenge to not simply roll into Allepo of end the killing, but, what does a governance have in place to try to establish the city again?