Syrian rebel leader accuses regime, allies of committing ‘a new Holocaust’

BEIRUT — A top Syrian rebel leader says government forces along with Iran and Russia are committing a new “Holocaust” in rebel-held suburbs of the capital Damascus.

Mohammed Alloush of the Army of Islam tells The Associated Press Tuesday that the United Nations is also to blame “because of its bankruptcy and lies about protecting security and peace in the world.”

Alloush’s comments come after opposition activists and paramedics said that more than 100 people have been killed since Monday in the worst daily death toll in the eastern suburbs, also known as eastern Ghouta, in three years.

Alloush, whose militant group is the strongest in eastern Ghouta, describes the government and its backers Russia and Iran as a “Satanic alliance” that is “unprecedented since World War II.”

Alloush adds that “a new Holocaust is being committed by the dirtiest regime on earth.”

— AP