The nearly-complete capture of Aleppo by Syrian forces shows that Iran, a key sponsor and military supporter of the Syrian regime, is the “top player” in the Middle East, an Iranian general boasted Wednesday.
The army of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian airstrikes and aided by Shiite militias under Iranian command, has almost achieved total victory in Aleppo, with only a few small rebel holdouts remaining. Iranian Gen. Rahim Safavi, a close advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, proclaimed that this means that “Americans have realized that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the top player in southwest Asia,” the Associated Press reported.
The capture is “a great victory for the Syrian people against terrorists and those who support them,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told Assad in a phone call, Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday. Assad responded that Syria “will never forget” the aid Iran provided to make the victory possible.
A frequently-suspended plan to evacuate civilians from the embattled city will take place late Wednesday, the BBC reported, citing rebel groups. However, the Russian government did not confirm if had agreed to the evacuation.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein charged in a statement released Wednesday that “the resumption of extremely heavy bombardment by the Syrian Government forces and their allies on an area packed with civilians is almost certainly a violation of international law and most likely constitutes war crimes.”
Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights, told reporters Tuesday that the death toll from the Syrian offensive included at least eleven women and thirteen children—some shot in the streets as they tried to escape. Syrian government troops allegedly entered homes and killed anyone, including women and children, “on the spot,” Colville said. He also cited “disturbing” reports of bodies that lay abandoned in the streets because other residents feared being shot on sight.
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the UN office coordinating emergency relief, said that 37,000 people had fled the eastern part of the city and nearly 15,000 have been gathered into collective shelters. Laerke called the situation in Aleppo “a complete meltdown of humanity.”
The capture of Aleppo would go a long way toward achieving Iran’s goal of “the establishment of a Shi’ite Arab territory that physically links Iran to southern Lebanon via Iraq and Syria,” Lebanese journalist Hanin Ghaddar wrote in The Iranian Empire Is Almost Complete, which was published in the December 2016 issue of The Tower Magazine.
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