BEIRUT // Russia’s military on Friday said it has begun scaling down its deployment to Syria, as the regime intensified its bombardment of a rebel-held district home to the capital’s main water source.
Russia’s main commander in Syria, Andrew Kartapolov said a naval group headed by aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov would leave the conflict zone under a drawdown ordered by President Vladimir Putin on December 29.
Aircraft from the carrier Kuznetsov hit 1,252 “terrorist” targets during a two month mission. The warship arrived off Syria in November as Russia boosted its firepower on land and in the Mediterranean to support regime forces targeting Aleppo.
The fall of the rebel-held east of the city gave Syrian president Bashar Al Assad his biggest victory in almost six years of fighting. Thousands of civilians and opposition fighters left the rebel-held enclave lin December after months of siege under a ceasefire brokered by Moscow and Ankara.
Moscow had already announced a partial withdrawal of Russian forces in March 2016, but ramped up its presence again as fighting increased.
Putin’s latest announced drawdown coincided with the declaration of a ceasefire between government and rebel forces that has led to sharp drop in fighting.
A major exception has been the rebel-held area of Wadi Barada near Damascus where the regime has stepped up air strikes as the rival sides trade blame over a cut to mains supplies to the capital. The Shiite group Hizbollah declared a reported that a ceasefire had been reached for “a number of hours” in the area to allow repairs to the pumping station but this was swiftly denied by a senior rebel figure.
Munir Sayal, head of the political wing of the Ahrar Al-Sham rebel group, said the Hizbollah claim was “a lie” and the Syrian government had rejected all requests for a pause in fighting.
Turkey, which brokered the ceasefire with Russia, warned that the continued fighting around Wadi Barada was jeopardising the peace negotiations which are due to being on January 23 in Atana, the capital of Kazakhstan.,
Government aircraft on Friday dropped at least 10 barrel bombs, crude munitions notorious for the indiscriminate casualties they cause, on Wadi Barada. A child was killed as clashes resumed in the area between pro-government forces and rebel fighters led by former Al Qaeda affiliate group Fateh Al-Sham Front.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the war monitoring service, said Abu Al Hassan Taftanaz, a leading member of the Front was also killed on Friday, along with his son, an Islamic legal scholar, by a drone in the north western province of Idlib. They were two among 35 members of the militant group killed since Sunday in air raids on Idlib, including fighters and commanders, although the Pentagon put the figure at 20 militants killed.
* Agence France Presse
