Syrian army deals blow to rebels, peace talks on hold

Syria’s army secured a major battlefield victory yesterday as Russia vowed no let-up in its aerial bombardment in support of the regime, helping force the temporary suspension of fragile peace talks in Switzerland.
In a major blow to the rebels, a military source said that President Bashar al-Assad’s army cut the last supply route linking opposition forces in the northern city of Aleppo to the Turkish border.
The source said the army had broken a three-year rebel siege of two government-held Shia villages, Nubol and Zahraa, and taken control of parts of the supply route.
The advance was helped by intense bombing by Russian aircraft in recent days throughout the area north of Aleppo city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
The offensive is one of several the government has launched since Moscow threw its military might behind President Bashar al-Assad, adding to support from Iran, on September 30.
The new advance helped undermine efforts in Geneva over recent days by the UN special envoy to coax the warring sides into indirect peace talks to end a war that has killed more than 260,000 people.
Yesterday the envoy, Staffan de Mistura, duly announced a temporary suspension of the talks until February 25.
“I have concluded frankly that after the first week of preparatory talks there is more work to be done, not only by us but the stakeholders,” de Mistura told reporters.
“I have indicated from the first day I won’t talk for the sake of talking. I therefore have taken the decision to bring a temporary pause. It is not the end or the failure of the talks,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday he saw no reason for the air strikes to stop, while slamming “capricious” elements in the HNC and the smuggling of arms into Syria from Turkey.
“Russian air strikes will not cease until we truly defeat the terrorist organisations ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra,” Russian agencies quoted Lavrov as saying in Oman.
He was referring to the so-called Islamic State group, which has overrun swathes of Syria and Iraq and has claimed bombings and shootings worldwide, and to Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch.  
The opposition says the Russian strikes have almost entirely targeted other rebel groups, many backed by the West, Gulf states and Turkey, which shot down a Russian jet on its Syrian border in November.
Since the conflict began in March 2011 as an uprising against Assad’s iron-fisted rule, more than half of Syria’s population have fled their homes—many heading to Europe.
There has been a brutal crackdown on dissent and the economy is in ruins.
World leaders will gather in London today for a donor conference to try to raise $9bn to help Syrians hit by the war and neighbouring countries affected by the crisis.