AFP, Damascus :Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday offered an amnesty to armed rebels battling his forces if they surrender, the official SANA news agency reported.”Everyone carrying arms… and sought by justice… is excluded from full punishment if they hand themselves in and lay down their weapons,” SANA said, quoting a presidential decree on the three-month amnesty offer. The reprieve also includes any rebel who frees a hostage, according to the decree text.The offer comes as opposition neighbourhoods of Aleppo city are effectively surrounded by pro-government forces, sparking fears for the more than 200,000 people trapped there.Assad’s ally Russia said Thursday it had launched a “large-scale” operation with the Syrian government to open humanitarian corridors for civilians and fighters fleeing the northern city.Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian news agencies that three humanitarian corridors were being opened “to aid civilians held hostage by terrorists and for fighters wishing to lay down their arms” and one more corridor to the north of the city for rebels to flee with their weapons.Assad has issued several amnesties in recent years, including one in July 2015 for people who have dodged service or defected from the army.Syria’s UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said this week he hopes peace talks aimed at ending more than five years of brutal conflict could resume at the end of August.More than 280,000 people have been killed in Syria since the war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests that were met with a brutal regime crackdown.Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch accused the Syrian regime and its ally Russia on Thursday of extensively using banned cluster munitions in their offensive against rebels in the war-torn country.The New York-based watchdog said it had documented 47 cluster munition attacks that killed and injured dozens of civilians in rebel-held areas in three provinces since May 27.Many of these attacks took place north and west of Aleppo, as Russia-backed regime forces sought to besiege the opposition-controlled part of the northern city, it said.Russia in September launched a campaign of air strikes in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.”Since Russia and Syria have renewed their joint air operations, we have seen a relentless use of cluster munitions,” said Ole Solvang, deputy emergencies director at HRW.”The Russian government should immediately ensure that neither its forces nor Syria’s use this inherently indiscriminate weapon,” he said.HRW in December said it had documented the use of cluster munitions on 20 occasions since Russia launched air strikes on September 30.”Although Russia and Syria are not members of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, they are still bound by international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks,” HRW said.Cluster munitions contain dozens or hundreds of bomblets and are fired in rockets or dropped from the air.Widely banned, they spread explosives over large areas and are indiscriminate in nature, often continuing to maim and kill long after the initial attack when previously unexploded bomblets detonate.More than 280,000 people have been killed in Syria since the war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
