Official: U.S. believes Russian aircraft hit aid convoy in Syria
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A U.S. official says "preliminary indications" show that Russian aircraft targeted and hit an aid convoy in Syria on Monday, killing 20 aid workers and truck drivers, CBS News reports.
Russia's Defense Ministry say the strikes were not carried out by Russian or Syrian aircraft, adding that only rebel groups knew where the convoy was traveling in Aleppo and the allegations against Russia are "hasty and unfounded." The Interfax news agency reports the ministry suggested that there is no evidence that a strike even took place, and the 20 trucks and warehouses destroyed on Monday weren't attacked but rather just caught on fire.
Members of the convoy who survived said they had to have been hit by aircraft, CBS News reports, and the leader of a group of first responders told The Associated Press on Tuesday his team saw at least 20 missiles hit the convoy over a period of two hours, with some appearing to be launched from the air and others from the ground. The U.N.'s humanitarian aid agency has temporarily suspended all convoys in the country in the wake of the attack.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
