The US has named a dozen Syrian generals and colonels it said were responsible for bombing civilians and the torture of detainees, warning the officers will eventually be held accountable for their actions.



The ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, read out the names and the military units alleged to be conducting torture to a meeting on Monday of the UN security council. She said at least 289 people had been killed in eastern Aleppo in the weeks since Russia and the Syrian regime stepped up their bombing campaign of the rebel-held enclave. Power said that it was hit by 180 airstrikes on Saturday alone.

At the same security council session, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Stephen O’Brien, said there were now almost 1 million Syrians living under siege.

“Horror is now usual – it is a level of violence and destruction that the world appears to consider normal for Syria and normal for the Syrian people. Month after month I have reported to this council that the level of depravity inflicted upon the Syrian people cannot sink lower, only to return the following month with hideous and, with shocking disbelief, new reports of ever-worsening human suffering,” O’Brien said. “I am more or less at my wit’s end as a human being – but I’m here, like my colleagues, to be professional, to be objective.”

The naming of generals alleged to have committed war crimes comes two months after the collapse of a US-Russian brokered ceasefire that triggered a review of Syrian policy inside the Obama administration, which has looked at other means of putting pressure on Russia and its Syrian regime allies to stop the bombing of civilian areas, as well as ways of increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to those facing winter under siege.

One of the options that diplomats said were likely to emerge from the review were more targeted sanctions including named individuals and units. In reading a list of Syrian generals implicated in possible war crimes, Power did not threaten sanctions but warned of potential prosecution some time in the future.

This list included Maj Gen Adib Salameh, the head of air force intelligence in Aleppo until September; Brig Gen Adnan Aboud Hilweh, head of the 155 and 157 brigades accused of using chemical weapons in 2013, and other atrocities; and Maj Gen Jawdat Salbi Mawas and Tahir Hamid Khalil, both senior artillery officers also implicated in chemical weapon attacks on Ghouta in 2013. All were put on an EU sanctions list in late October, subjecting them to a travel ban and an asset freeze.

Among the alleged regime torture centres Power named were four military intelligence branches, the air force intelligence investigation branch in Mezzeh military airport, Sednaya prison and the Tishreen and Harasta military hospitals.

“Those behind such attacks must know that we and the international community are watching their actions, documenting their abuses, and one day they will be held accountable,” Power said, comparing them to former Yugoslavia and Liberian leaders who faced international war crimes tribunals years after their crimes.

“Now, I know right now, today, with wind at their backs, these individuals feel impunity. So, though, did Slobodan Milosevic, Charles Taylor and countless war criminals before them. Today’s atrocities are well documented, and the civilized world’s memories are long.”

In the case of the former Yugoslavia and Liberia, there were judicial processes for prosecuting leaders with a mandate from the UN security council. That is not true of Syria, on which Russia and the west are bitterly divided.

The Obama administration’s approach to Syria has relied heavily on diplomatic efforts to agree a ceasefire deal with Russia, coupled with a largely ineffective effort to train and equip opposition fighters perceived as moderate. At a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Peru, Obama urged a continuation of bilateral talks on Syria.

Two Republican senators issued a statement on Monday, lambasting the administration’s approach on Syria.

“As Syrian regime and Russian forces continue their brutal assault on Aleppo, killing scores of civilians and destroying the last remaining hospitals in the eastern part of the city, President Obama and his administration continue to summon only words of condemnation, but no meaningful action,” the senators said. “After an exchange of pleasantries with Vladimir Putin in Peru this weekend, President Obama’s answer to the carnage unfolding in Aleppo was to note the need for secretary of state John Kerry and the Russian foreign minister to continue pursuing initiatives ‘to diminish the violence and alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people’. The delusion captured by such a statement is nothing short of stunning. After hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed in a merciless campaign of inhuman slaughter aided and abetted by Russia, what could possibly give President Obama or any thinking person the impression that Vladimir Putin has any interest in alleviating the suffering of the Syrian people?”

The senators’ immediate target was the current administration, but it was also a signal to the incoming Trump White House that it will face stiff resistance in Congress to any attempt to strike a deal with Russia on Syria that relieves pressure on Moscow for its part in the regime’s bombing campaign on civilian areas.