UN Syria Envoy Staffan de Mistura appealed directly to Jabhat al-Nusra, Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, on Oct. 6 to leave the city of Aleppo “because 1,000 of you are deciding the destiny of the 275,000 civilians.”
De Mistura offered to physically accompany the terrorists out of the city in order to alleviate the suffering of Aleppo’s besieged citizens, while calling on the Syrian and Russian governments to end the siege of the city “for the sake of eliminating 1,000 al-Nusra fighters.”
Jabhat al-Nusra, which broke from al-Qaeda and rebranded itself as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (Conquest of Syria Front) in July, is designated as a terrorist organization by both the United States and the United Nations. Russia claimed that a reason for the collapse of the US-Russia agreement last month was the inability of the United States and its regional allies to separate American-backed Syrian opposition forces from Jabhat al-Nusra. The US-Russia agreement in Syria would have facilitated US and Russian military and intelligence coordination against Jabhat al-Nusra, in addition to allowing for humanitarian assistance and a resumption of UN-backed peace talks.
The Barack Obama administration has increasingly warned of the dangers posed by the expansion of Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. On Sept. 9, US Secretary of State John Kerry said, “Going after Nusra is not a concession to anybody.” He added, “It is profoundly in the interests of the United States to target al-Qaeda — to target al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, which is Nusra, an organization that is opposed to a peaceful transition, an organization that is an enemy of the legitimate opposition, an organization that is currently plotting attacks beyond Syria’s borders, including against the United States.”
Jabhat al-Nusra’s role in Aleppo has been overshadowed, or left out, in most mainstream press accounts of the brutality of the Russian and Syrian siege of the city. On Oct. 7, Kerry said, “Russia and the [Syrian] regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women” and called for an “investigation of war crimes.” During the vice presidential debate Oct. 4, both Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence called for the establishment of humanitarian or safe zones in response to the siege.
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