Assad casts doubt on Syria ceasefire prospects amid intensifying campaign

  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appeared to cast doubt on the prospects for a ceasefire in his country's grinding civil war, telling an audience in Damascus on Monday that "no one" was capable of bringing about the circumstances required for the deal to take effect.

World powers agreed in Munich, Germany, on Friday to seek a nationwide "cessation of hostilities" in Syria to begin in a week's time, although it would not apply to the battle against terrorist groups ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra.

But in his comments on the proposal Monday, Assad appeared to be skeptical about whether a halt in the conflict was possible.

"We hear about them requesting a ceasefire within a week. OK, then who is capable of bringing together all these conditions within a week? No one. Who will speak to the terrorists if a terrorist organization refused to adhere to the ceasefire, who will make them accountable? Who, as they say, will bomb them?"

In comments to Syria's central Bar Association, reported in Syria's state news agency SANA, he said there were many questions about which groups in the conflict could be classified as terrorists.

"As a state, anyone who bears weapons against the state and against the Syrian people is terrorist, and this is indisputable," he said.

U.S.: Questions about Russia's willingness for ceasefire

Critics have expressed doubts about the prospects of the proposed ceasefire as the Syrian army, backed by Russian air power, pursues a major offensive in northern Syria.

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice told reporters Monday that the escalating military campaign called into question "Russia's willingness or ability to implement the agreements achieved in Munich."

"The intensified bombings, the displacement, the fact that civilian entities have been hit by the regime and its backers, is of grave concern," she said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern after hospitals and a school were hit in strikes Monday, in what a U.N. spokesman said was a "blatant violation of international laws" and France and Turkey labeled war crimes.

Up to 50 civilians were killed in the strikes in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York on Monday.

The UNICEF humanitarian group said that four medical facilities in total were hit: two in Aleppo and two in Idlib, two of which it supported.

 

Hospitals destroyed

In one attack in Azaz, in northern Aleppo province, 15 people were killed Monday when a hospital and a school building that was housing displaced people were struck, according to a hospital worker on the scene. Up to 40 other people were wounded.

Staff members were evacuating the wounded after the first strike on the Women's and Children's Hospital when the complex and a road leading to the Turkish border were struck again, a hospital employee known as Moudhar told CNN. Women and children were among the dead, he said. Another projectile hit the nearby school building, he said.

The remains of the hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders in Maarat al-Numan.

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In a separate attack in Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province, another horrifying scene played out as missiles struck a hospital four times within minutes.

At least seven people were killed and eight others were missing and presumed dead, said Doctors Without Borders, which supports the hospital.

Images from the scene showed the hospital reduced to mostly twisted metal and other rubble. 

Airstrikes earlier this month killed three people and wounded at least six at a Doctors Without Borders-supported hospital in Daraa governorate, southern Syria, on February 5, the aid group said.

Accusations fly

Officials around the world traded accusations over who was behind the attacks.

The U.S. State Department blamed the "Assad regime and its supporters" for the attacks, with spokesman John Kirby saying in a statement that they cast doubt on "Russia's willingness and/or ability to help bring to a stop the continued brutality of the Assad regime against its own people."

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault also blamed the Syrian "regime or its supporters" for the attacks, which he said constituted war crimes. 

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed Russia for the strikes in Azaz, which is close to the Turkish border, claiming Moscow had targeted the complex with ballistic missiles fired from the Caspian Sea.

Doctors Without Borders officials said it believed that Syrian government-led coalition forces had carried out the strikes in Idlib.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov "categorically" denied the accusations, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Turkish defense minister: 'No intention' of sending ground troops into Syria 

And Syria's ambassador to Russia, Riad Haddad, blamed the United States and coalition forces for the Idlib attack, saying that it had intelligence that proves that U.S.-led coalition warplanes raided the hospital. 

The United States has said it carried out no military operations in the attacked area.

Germany: Support for no-fly zone

Northern Syria has been the scene of intense fighting recently, with Syrian regime forces, backed by Russian jets, pursuing a major offensive on the key city of Aleppo, and Turkey bombarding Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, near Azaz.

Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group, while the United States backs it in the fight against ISIS.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung that "in the current situation," she would support the creation of a no-fly zone in northern Syria to create a haven for fleeing families, which could offer at least a partial solution to Europe's refugee crisis. 

"In the current situation, it would be helpful if there were areas there, where no party to the war flew bombing missions -- in other words a kind of no-fly zone," she said in response to a direct question from a reporter about her position on exclusion zones. 

"We can't negotiate with the terrorists from ISIS. But if it were doable to come to such an agreement with the anti-Assad coalition and the Assad supporters, it would be helpful."

Turkey has long advocated the creation of a no-fly zone in northern Syria, despite bombing Kurdish positions in the region.