Iranian people eager for freedom

Former Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird

 Washington Times, Former Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird spoke in front of some 100,000 Iranian supporters of the NCRI in Paris on July 9, 2016. Foreign Minister Baird said: The great struggle of our generation is the struggle against terrorism, and the regime in Tehran is by far the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Over the years, billions of dollars have left Tehran to sow fear, violence, death and destruction. From Assad’s war against his own people, to a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, from a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, to arming Hezbollah with missiles targeting civilians in Israel, we must call the mullahs out on it.
The people of Iran suffer each and every day under this regime… We must call out this slick public relations campaign for what it is: a lie. We have so many allies in the fight against this brutal regime. But you know who our biggest ally in this struggle is? Friends, it is the people of Iran. Make no mistake whatsoever that the people of Iran do not support this regime and they want to see it overthrown. Each and every one of us need to stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and come together and state clearly that the notion that Hassan Rouhani is a moderate or is a reformer, simply put, is a fraud.

Dozens killed, wounded in fresh Aleppo violence

The Syrian army said rebel groups had launched a widespread attack in Aleppo on Tuesday and bombarded civilian areas with rockets, killing and wounding a number of people and hitting a hospital.

The army was making "the appropriate response to the sources of fire", a statement from the army command said. It accused groups including the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and Jaish al-Islam of being behind the attacks.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels had fired rockets and shells on government-controlled western districts of the city throughout the day.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said a cessation of hostilities in Syria must be "brought back on track" as he held talks in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

In televised remarks, de Mistura praised the truce brokered by Moscow and Washington as a "remarkable achievement" and said the two global powers should help "all of us to make sure that this is brought back on track".

Meanwhile, heavy air strikes throughout the night on ISIS’s de facto Syria capital Raqqa killed at least 13 civilians and five militants, the Observatory said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had no immediate word on whether the strikes were carried out by the Damascus regime, its ally Moscow or the US-led coalition battling ISIS.

"Raqqa has not been targeted by air raids of this intensity for several weeks," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

"These raids continued throughout the night and into the morning."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged Russia and the United States to put Syria’s ceasefire back on track and stressed that new truce arrangements in place for two areas must be extended to Aleppo.

Heavy air strikes hit rebel-held east Aleppo in the early hours of Monday, days after the United States and Russia announced plans to reinforce the February 27 truce in Latakia and Damascus regions.

Ban is “profoundly concerned about the dangerous escalation of fighting in and around Aleppo and the intolerable suffering, counted in mounting deaths and destruction, it is causing among civilians,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The UN chief noted the re-launch of the cessation of hostilities in Damascus and Latakia and stressed “the need to expand these arrangements to other parts of Syria, with a special urgency for Aleppo.”

The appeal came on the eve of talks between Ban’s envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on the collapsing ceasefire.

‘New initiatives’

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Monday he was deeply concerned about the state of the ceasefire in Syria and that a new initiative was needed to keep dialogue alive, after a sharp escalation of violence in the city of Aleppo.

“There is a need for a new initiative in the Syria dialogue to keep it alive, the Syrian moderate opposition is finding it increasingly difficult to justify their participation in a political process,” Hammond told reporters during a visit to Mexico City.

More than 270,000 people have been killed since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests demanding that leader Bashar al-Assad step down.

The world cannot let Aleppo be slaughtered before our eyes

The slaughter of Aleppo is underway

The slaughter of Aleppo is underway. At least 212 civilians have been killed, including at least 57 children, since April 18. The bloodshed is certain to increase in the coming weeks as the regime and allied forces launch a major offensive to attempt to retake rebel-held territory in the city. The past several days have proved utterly brutal in Aleppo and a number of videos show footage of all too familiar scenes: Dust covered babies and tiny children being pulled from rubble, horrifically mangled bodies, and devastated civilian infrastructure. In one especially barbaric attack, the Assad regime intentionally targeted Al Quds hospital, massacring at least 55 people. Among the dead at the Doctors without Borders-supported facility was one of Aleppo’s very last pediatricians. Meanwhile, reports indicated rebels have intensely shelled government-held areas of the city, killing at least 71.

As the Assad regime and its allied forces continue carrying out war crimes with impunity, the international community must reflect on how history will look back at this period of bloodshed. Amid the devastating surge in violence, the United States and Russia brokered a nebulous “regime of calm,” agreement, which calls for a cessation of fighting in areas of Damascus and Latakia for 24 and 72 hours, respectively. Excluding Aleppo from the agreement - where a halt in fighting is most desperately needed – is a tragic mistake.

Extermination

The past several days in Aleppo have further demonstrated a particularly poignant truth: Syria is perhaps one of the most well-tracked conflicts in history, with shaky camera footage emerging only minutes after an airstrike and consistent real time coverage of rebel and regime battles. Yet, despite the overwhelming amount of information made available almost instantly about war crime after war crime, the atrocities have continued. The US has waged a justified war against ISIS but the chief orchestrator of the entire conflict remains untouched; the war in Syria will never end so long as the perpetrator of the worst violence enjoys impunity for his crimes. Just months ago in February, the United Nations indicated that the Assad regime is guilty of carrying out the war crime of “extermination” against his own people. A government guilty of such a campaign cannot be dealt with in civil negotiations.

Aleppo cannot be the stage for the latest unforgiveable crimes against humanity that we watch unfold like helpless spectators. This devastating conflict has been punctuated by multiple opportunities for the US to more broadly intervene; they have not been seized. As the slaughter of Aleppo begins, the impetus for the US to act is nearly as strong as it was after Assad massacred his own people in the worst chemical weapon attack since Halabja. With the help of Turkey and Arab allies, the US should implement a No-Fly Zone (NFZ) and ensure the protection of Syrians by force. The regime and Russia cannot continue dictating the role of the US in Syria while at the same time carrying out horrific attacks against civilians.

Aleppo cannot be the stage for the latest unforgivable crimes against humanity that we watch unfold like helpless spectators
Brooklyn Middleton

When the very last airstrike is launched and the last barrel bomb dropped, no party can look back and claim they were ignorant of what exactly the situation on the ground in Syria was during its hellish war. No one can deny that the world knew thousands of Syrians died from torture at the hands of government forces. Summaries of the conflict will note that regime defector Ceaser smuggled 55,000 photographs into the west, showing the world images of detainees whose eyes had been gouged out and whose rib cages and hip bones appeared to be on the verge of breaking through their pale and yellowed skin. “History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, as though the one had never existed,” wrote Wislawa Szymborska in her devastating poem “Hunger Camp At Jaslo.” In Syria, the dead that haven’t been disappeared continue to be counted daily but only after the war will the real death toll come to be known.

Until the international community acts to protect Syrian civilians, Aleppo will continue burning. And more photos of dust covered tiny bodies will surface. And the world can look forward to one day counting more and more skeletons in round numbers.

Another Aylan ,but in Aleppo

 

Another victim of Assad but this time in Aleppo

Free Syrian Army in Aleppo operations room announced the international community twenty-four hours to put pressure on   Assad regime to stop bombing civilians in the city

Assad regime in the past few days has intensified his bombings in Aleppo in which dozens of civilians were killed and injured

The most shocking scene of these crimes is death a child in Assad's bombing in Aleppo

The child was killed in aerial bombing. He was picking berries from a tree close to his school

The United States and the United Nations closed their eyes to this crime

While Russia and Iran send armaments on a wide scale arms   to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

In addition، the Iranian regime send the so called Revolutionary Guards and Lebanese militias, Iraqi and Afghan and Pakistani military forces under his command   to Syria