The White House and State Department on Thursday condemned the attack on a hospital in Aleppo, Syria that killed dozens of people as “abhorrent” and “immoral,” and attributed it to Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s military.
Presidential press secretary Josh Earnest said the attack killed at least 14 patients and three doctors, including the last pediatrician in the city, and said it appears to follow an “abhorrent pattern of [Assad] striking first responders.”
Secretary of State John Kerry said the United Nations Thursday assessed the situation in Aleppo to be “catastrophic,” and said while the U.S. is still gathering facts about the attack, it appears to be a deliberate attack on a medical facility by the Assad regime.
He said Russia has an “urgent responsibility to press the [Assad] regime to fulfill its commitments” under the ceasefire and stop attacking civilians, medical facilities and first responders.
Earnest specifically mentioned the repeated Assad military practice of “double-tap” strikes — in which planes strike an area and then circle back to hit the target again when first responders are trying to help the wounded.
Earnest called that tactic “immoral,” and said they are unfortunately “entirely consistent with the actions we’ve seen from the Assad regime for some time.”
The attack on the Aleppo hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee on the Red Cross puts even more pressure on an “already fragile” ceasefire in Syria, he said.
“It’s the continued violations of that continued cessation of hostilities by the Assad regime that is also having a negative impact on the political talks,” he said.
