US agencies are considering “diplomatic, military, intelligence and economic options” to deal with the crisis in Syria, an official said yesterday, while stressing the need for a “political resolution.”
Top US security and foreign policy chiefs are to meet today to review their options to present to US President Barack Obama, after abandoning attempts to work with Russia to impose a truce.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed that some military options might be discussed, but said Secretary of State John Kerry is still working hard to pursue the diplomatic track with allies.
“Just because we’ve temporarily suspended the co-operation that we had bilaterally with Russia on Syria doesn’t mean that we’ve closed any doors on multilateral action,” Toner said.
US officials say that any new economic sanctions on Russia or Syria would be more effective if applied internationally.
Senior US and European officials will meet today in Germany.
“We’re examining closely our approach going forward,” Toner said of the internal US government debate in Washington.
“And in that regard, the departments/agencies are discussing diplomatic, military, intelligence and economic options, and we’ll all have these discussions going forward.
“But essentially our view remains the same,” Toner said. “Our stress is still on a political resolution.”
US forces are deployed in Syria and Iraq leading an international coalition fighting the Islamic State group, but the White House has resisted pressure to be drawn into the Syrian civil war.
Russian forces are there backing Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad’s forces in their battle against the rebels, some of them supported by the US.
Last month, a US-Russian effort to broker a ceasefire collapsed amid mutual recrimination and Assad’s forces backed by Russian air power launched an assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
Toner said Washington had walked away from the deal with Russia “with frustration, outrage and sadness,” but said it was impossible to pursue it while Russian forces target Syrian civilians.
Meanwhile, Syrian rebels said they had repelled an army offensive in southern Aleppo as Russian and Syrian warplanes pounded residential areas.
Turkey, long one of the main foes of Assad but which has lately repaired its damaged ties with his ally Russia, said it planned to make a proposal to Washington and Moscow to resurrect a ceasefire that collapsed last month.
But on the ground there was no sign of peace with potentially the biggest and most decisive battle of the five-and-a-half year war unfolding as pro-government forces sought to drive anti-Assad rebels from their last major urban stronghold.
Assad’s government, with Russian air support and Iranian ground forces, launched the assault on Aleppo last month, a week into a ceasefire agreed by Washington and Moscow.
The United States and other Western countries say Moscow and Damascus are guilty of war crimes for deliberately targeting civilians, hospitals and aid deliveries to crush the will of more than 250,000 people trapped under siege in Aleppo.
The Syrian and Russian governments say they target only militants.
Rebels said they inflicted losses on pro-government fighters after hours of clashes on the fringe of Sheikh Saed district, at the southern edge of the rebel-held eastern half of Aleppo city.
“We repelled their attempt to advance in Sheikh Saed and killed 10 regime fighters and destroyed several vehicles,” said a fighter from the Failaq al-Sham rebel group who gave his name as Abdullah al-Halabi.
Pro-government media said the Syrian army was pressing ahead in a major campaign supported by Iranian-backed militias and Russian air power to take full control of Syria’s largest city, divided between rebel and government zones since 2012.
In the 15 days since the collapse of the ceasefire, war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented the deaths of 293 civilians in besieged east Aleppo as a result of air strikes and shelling, including 20 yesterday.
It has documented 25 deaths in government-held west Aleppo from rebel shelling during the 15 days.
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