The United Nations condemned Russia for its barbaric air attack on a UN humanitarian convoy in Syria that destroyed trucks carrying food and medicine to civilians trapped at Aleppo even as the United States said it had more than enough evidence to confirm the Russian Air Force carried out the unwarranted attack. The murderous attack also killed some 20 UN aid workers and civilians.

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An infuriated UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blasted the Russian attack as "sickening, savage and apparently deliberate."

"Just when we think it cannot get any worse, the power of depravity sinks lower," Ban told world leaders at the UN General Assembly annual meeting in New York on Sept. 20.

The aid convoy and a UN warehouse were destroyed by Russian ground attack jets (probably Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bombers) on the evening of Sept. 19 in the area of Urum al-Kubra, west of Aleppo. The Russians apparently attacked the unarmed UN convoy twice (which the United States say is standard Russian tactics) and prompted the UN to halt its aid operations in Syria.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said some 20 civilians, most of the UN aid workers, were killed in the Russian attack. Among the dead was Omar Barakat, director of the Red Crescent's Urum al-Kubra branch.

The UN said 18 of the convoy's 31 trucks were hit with most of those hit being destroyed. The aid in these trucks was intended for eastern Aleppo where some 250,000 civilians are in desperate need of food, medicine and water.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said aid workers had been killed in an "aerial bombardment."

"All of our information indicates clearly that this was an airstrike. That means there only could have been two entities responsible," said U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.

These entities were either Moscow or the Syrian regime. While Rhodes didn't specify which country's planes carried out the strike, US military sources citing classified intelligence were certain Russian fighter bombers carried out the attack.

The US government also holds Russia responsible for the murderous attack whether or not Russia carries it out, said Rhodes.

"We hold the Russian government responsible for airstrikes in this airspace given their commitment under the cessation of hostilities was to ground air operations where humanitarian assistance was flowing," said Rhodes, referring to the terms of a recent ceasefire brokered between the US and Russia.

The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad pronounced that ceasefire dead on the same day its Russian allies attacked the UN aid convoy.

Russia, of course, denied its warplanes had bombed the convoy claiming, implausibly, that unnamed rebels were responsible. No Syrian rebel faction operates an air force and there were no reports of any rebel ground attacks on the convoy.

TagsUnited Nations, Russia, Aleppo, United States, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Urum al-Kubra, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights