Syrian White Helmets chief 'dreams' of never pulling a body out of rubble again

Nearly 14 years after the start of Syria's civil war, White Helmets rescue group chief Raed Saleh sees no way out of a conflict that has reignited.

This week, he traveled to New York to plead the case of the Syrian people before the United Nations Security Council -- just as he did a decade ago.

Islamist rebels have captured swathes of territory and the second city of Aleppo in Syria's northwest in recent days, challenging President Bashar al-Assad's grip over the country. The fighting has claimed hundreds of lives.

Saleh has called for a "political solution," but holds out little hope for it to be achieved.

"The Security Council has failed over the past 14 years to achieve security in Syria, and I believe it will fail again today," he told AFP.

Speaking before the council, Saleh slammed the international community for having "utterly failed" Syrians, singling out Russia for particular criticism.

Moscow is a key ally of the Syrian government and has lent Assad's forces military aid since 2015.

"Russia currently has no interest in peace in Syria, it is focused on its own interests in Syria, which are aligned with the Syrian regime," he told AFP.

Moscow, he said, would continue to use its veto at the Council "to protect the regime," as it has done since the start of the civil war in 2011.

Russia has accused the White Helmets of spreading disinformation and of wanting to "vilify" the Syrian government.

On Tuesday, the Russian UN delegation failed in an attempt to prevent Saleh from addressing the Security Council, a meeting of which was convened urgently to discuss the deteriorating situation in Syria.

- 'Collective punishment' -

On November 27, a coalition of armed rebels led by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) -- the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda -- launched a lightning offensive in Syria's northwest, which had been relatively calm since 2020.

In the space of a few days, the rebels seized large amounts of territory and gained control of Aleppo, which fell entirely out of government hands for the first time in more than a decade of war.

Syrian government forces have launched a counter-offensive around Hama, a strategically located city that is key to Assad's forces defending the capital Damascus.

In the space of a week, at least 704 people have been killed, including 110 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The White Helmets, with their 3,200-strong force of volunteer rescue workers in the northwest, have redeployed to Aleppo and other affected areas "to respond to urgent humanitarian needs," Saleh said.

"So far, we have collected more than 150 bodies from roads and conflict zones," he said, in addition to providing aid to the wounded.

"We are working on documenting these bodies, burying them respectfully, and meticulously recording their details to facilitate their identification," he said.

Saleh fears the situation could get even worse.

"The regime is effectively implementing its strategic plan, which it has been following for 14 years: a policy of collective punishment against civilians in Aleppo and Idlib," he said.

Those reprisals against civilians, he cautioned, include potentially involving the use of chemical weapons -- something Assad has been accused of in the past.

"We fear the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the regime, as it has done in 2018, 2017, and 2013. Whenever it faced military collapses, it resorted to chemical weapons to regain the initiative," said Saleh.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which this week expressed concern about a possibly large quantity of chemical weapons in Syria, has in the past accused the Syrian authorities of using these weapons during the civil war.

The Syrian opposition says one of those attacks in August 2013 on the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus killed around 1,400 people.

Damascus denies the charges.

For Saleh, the dream is that one day his organization will run out of work to do.

"I truly dream that our work of pulling bodies from under the rubble will not continue," he said.

"Instead, we transition to building a new Syria: a prosperous nation, a great civilization, one that loves peace and supports the people of the region."