© Ammar Abdullah / ReutersDamaged aid trucks are pictured after an airstrike on the rebel held Urm al-Kubra town, western Aleppo city, Syria September 20, 2016.
After an air attack which destroyed 18 of 31 trucks in a humanitarian aid convoy near Aleppo on Monday, UN has suspended all aid deliveries in Syria.
Twenty civilians are reported killed, a senior local official of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent among them.
Benoit Matsha-Carpentier of the International Red Cross confirmed to RT that a director of "a sub-branch in Aleppo" was among the victims.
"We have very diverse information and it is still quite difficult to get a full picture of the situation. Very tragically, once again we have volunteers and staff from this year in the Red Crescent who has been attacked. We only have confirmation that one of them died on Monday," he said. The identities of "several people" who have allegedly been killed in the attack on the aid convoy are not known yet, the official said.
"For us, the priority is safety and protection of our volunteers and staff on the ground. And that is why we are calling on all parties in the conflict to make sure that they are protected and they can provide safely assistance for those in need. Not reaching areas like Aleppo will obviously affect the population on the ground. It had been quite a while since a convoy has been able to enter," Matsha-Carpentier told RT.
US State Department spokesman John Kirby said the US was "outraged" at the attack, adding that "the destination of this convoy was known to the Syrian regime and the Russian Federation and yet these aid workers were killed in their attempt to provide relief to the Syrian people."
Comment: Russian, Syrian Jets Did Not Conduct Airstrikes on UN Convoy in Aleppo - MoD
"No airstrikes were carried out against a humanitarian aid convoy in a southwestern suburb of Aleppo by Russian or Syrian aviation. Seeing as the convoy's route lied through the territories controlled by militants, the Russian reconciliation center monitored its passage yesterday via drones," Konashenkov said.
According to the general, the monitoring finished when all humanitarian aid was delivered at around 10:40 GMT. "Further movements of the convoy were not monitored by the Russian side. Only the militants controlling this area know details of the convoy's location," Konashenkov added.
The examination of video footage reveals no signs of an ammunition strikes on the convoy, he said. "We have carefully studied videos by so-called activists from the site and found no signs of any ammunition striking the convoy. There are no shell holes, cars' bodies are not damaged and there are no construction faults from the bust wave. All shown on the footage is a direct consequence of the cargo being set on fire. The fire strangely coincided with a major offensive by militants in Aleppo."
"The United States will raise this issue directly with Russia. Given the egregious violation of the Cessation of Hostilities we will reassess the future prospects for cooperation with Russia," Kirby said.
According to retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Russia is the first the State Department and the Pentagon blame for "just about everything."
"That is the mode that we have been operating in for the last couple of years. We've seen it in a different number of areas," she told RT.
One thing that could raise questions regarding that accusation is that "a convoy as a target is something that is kind of obvious," she said.
"It is unlikely that it was an accident; whoever took it out was intending to take out the convoy of aid."
These accusations came just a day before the UN General Assembly session and Syria is expected to be one of the topics high on the agenda at the gathering.
"The position of blaming Russia will be a continuation of what we have seen in the past weeks," she said. "It looks like the rhetoric war. It is very clear that the Obama administration knows what it is doing in the rhetoric war and yet they do not have any idea what they are doing on the ground in Syria," Kwiatkowski added.
On Saturday, the US coalition carried out airstrikes on the Syrian Army near the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor on Saturday, which resulting in the death of more than 60 soldiers.
Comment: The U.S. is rapidly losing credibility on the world stage. Russia has given it numerous chances to backtrack and come out on the right side of history, but the fanatical neocon warhawks infesting the Pentagon will have none of it. Their support for the head-choppers they employed to overthrow Assad would be exposed for all to see.
US deliberately killed Syria ceasefire to prevent exposure of its systematic arming of terrorists