The Syrian army’s ongoing assault on Aleppo – which over the course of a week has killed nearly 500 people, among them scores of children – has drawn attention to a relatively new and cheap improvised explosive device being deployed by forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The Telegraph described the campaign as the “Syrian regime’s barrel bomb assault on Aleppo”:
One activist in Aleppo described the past nine days as “the most violent in the whole of the Syrian revolution,” a civil war that has claimed more than 126,000 lives since March 2011 and displaced millions of people.
Journalists and doctors first began documenting the Syrian air force’s use of so-called barrel bombs – drums packed with explosives and shrapnel, and literally rolled out of helicopters onto people and buildings – in August 2012. Since then the weapons have been refined, until now the Syrian air force is able to use a single bomb to level entire buildings.
The shrapnel packed inside the devices leaves those who aren’t killed maimed and disabled. CNN spoke to Dr. Ammar Zakaria, who treated bombing victims in the city:
Overwhelmed doctors frantically scurried over the weekend to help scores of patients left “dying on the floor” amid a punishing air assault on the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.
“There was a big massacre today,” Dr. Ammar Zakaria told CNN via Skype on Sunday from the country’s largest city and rebel stronghold. “We were treating shrapnel wounds, deep abdominal and brain injuries. I just lost count of the amputations.”
“A lot of victims died before arriving to the hospital. Many were inside the hospital, and we didn’t have the resources to help all the cases,” added Zakaria, detailing the bloody aftermath. “We didn’t have enough beds to help them all. People were dying on the floor.”
The outlet described images taken by the doctor as showing ‘a mangled ambulance stopped in its path and doctors operating in pools of blood, watching children cling to their last breath through a breathing tube.’
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced yesterday that preparations for the January 22 Geneva II conference, in which the Assad regime and its backers will attempt to present terms for an end to the bloodshed, are “on track.”
Brookings Institute senior fellow Michael Doran yesterday echoed concerns surrounding the talks – which will be attended by pro- and anti-Assad groups and by international parties:
Exactly RT @DarthNader: Looks like Geneva 2 is more about Assad-Western reconciliation than Assad-Syrian opposition negotiation.
— Mike Doran (@Doranimated) December 23, 2013
[Photo: News Worlds / YouTube ]