Syrian opposition rejects Aleppo exit as Assad forces advance

Russia said Monday it would hold talks with Washington on a total opposition withdrawal from Syria’s Aleppo, where the regime’s army has made sweeping advances, but opposition factions rejected any evacuation.
Forces of Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad have seized two-thirds of the former opposition bastion in east Aleppo since they began an operation to recapture all of the battered second city in mid-November.
The rapid gains for regime forces have left opposition fighters reeling and on Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks would be held on a rebel evacuation.
“During the Russian-American consultations the concrete route and timeframe for the withdrawal of all fighters from eastern Aleppo will be agreed upon,” Lavrov said, adding that the discussions in Geneva would likely start on Tuesday or Wednesday.
“As soon as these routes and timeframes are agreed on, a cease-fire can come into effect,” Lavrov said.
But rebel groups swiftly rejected any talk of an evacuation.
Yasser Al-Youssef of the Nureddine Al-Zinki faction, a leading rebel group in Aleppo, described any such proposal as “unacceptable.”
“It is for the Russians to leave,” he told AFP.
“The revolutionaries will not leave Aleppo and will fight the Russian and Iranian occupation until the last drop of blood,” said Abu Abdel Rahman Al-Hamawi of the Army of Islam, another smaller group active in Aleppo.
Another key district of eastern Aleppo has effectively fallen to advancing Syrian regime forces, an opposition official said on Monday.
“Karm Al-Jabal and Al-Shaar are considered fallen,” the official with the Jabha Shamiya group told Reuters, speaking from Turkey.
Lavrov appeared to suggest Moscow would use its veto to block the resolution, calling it “a provocative step.”
On the ground in the east, Syrian troops battled opposition fighters in the Shaar district, which the army has almost completely encircled after advancing overnight. 
The army on Monday pounded remaining opposition territory with incessant strikes and artillery fire that sent up plumes of smoke visible from across the city.
On Monday, state news agency SANA said eight people had been killed in opposition fire on west Aleppo, and an AFP correspondent in the west reported heavy incoming rocket fire that shook buildings.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday a Sukhoi jet fell into the sea after a malfunction as it tried to land on the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier following a bombing raid in Syria.
It was the second such crash involving Russia’s lone carrier in a month, since it arrived in the eastern Mediterranean to bolster Moscow’s air power in Syria.
“After carrying out its military assignment in Syrian airspace, a Su-33 fighter rolled beyond the deck of the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier during landing due to breakage of the arresting cable,” said a ministry statement quoted by Russian news agencies.
The pilot ejected from the plane and reached the ship safely, it said, without specifying when the incident happened although reports mentioned Saturday.
The ministry also claimed on Monday that Monday that Syrian opposition had deliberately shelled a Russian military field hospital in Aleppo, killing one female military medic and injuring two more.
Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said rebels had directed artillery fire at the mobile field hospital after it had started receiving civilians and had scored a direct hit on its reception.
“Without doubt the shelling was carried out by ‘opposition’ rebels,” Konashenkov said in a statement. “We know who the rebels got the exact information and coordinates about the hospital reception from.”
Meanwhile, Syrian activists say Russian and Syrian aircraft have stepped up their assaults on the opposition-held province of Idlib, a day after air raids killed more than 73 people.
The activist-run Local Coordination Committees is reporting airstrikes on the towns of Binnish, Maarat Nasaan, and Saraqib, as well as the provincial capital, Idlib.
The network says the Monday morning airstrikes killed three children. It blamed the attacks on Russian aircraft.

Source: Arab News