http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/world/middleeast/syria-cease-fire.html 2016-09-20 17:08:55 Syria Aid Convoys Suspended After Airstrike on Trucks U.N. officials were dumbfounded by the attack on the convoy, which occurred after the Syrian military declared that a partial cease-fire was over. === The United Nations suspended all aid convoys in United Nations officials were dumbfounded by the attack on the convoy, which occurred after the Syrian military declared that a seven-day partial cease-fire was over. The convoy, escorted by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, was among the first to try to deliver humanitarian aid to these areas under the cease-fire agreement. Members of the Red Crescent said that at least 12 people had been killed, including the local head of the organization, Omar Baraka. The head of the Syrian Civil Defense in Aleppo, Ammar Salmo, described the wreckage. The head of the United Nations agency that coordinates aid, Stephen O’Brien, said the attack would amount to a war crime if it were found to have targeted humanitarian aid workers. Witnesses said the convoy appeared to have been hit by multiple strikes that destroyed aid trucks and then hit rescue workers who arrived to help. The airstrike appeared to be the first to hit an aid convoy since the conflict began in 2011. The convoy attack and the declaration by the military were the strongest signs yet of the gradual unraveling of a broader agreement between Russia and the United States aimed at restarting peace talks to end the conflict in Syria, which has killed an estimated 500,000 people and displaced millions. Aid agencies did not say whether the planes were Syrian or Russian. Both the Russian and the Syrian governments denied responsibility. The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in his opening speech to the annual General Assembly on Tuesday, denounced the convoy bombing in strong terms, suggesting it had been a deliberate act to kill aid workers. He did not ascribe blame but said “those who bombed them were cowards.”