Sending troops to Syria would be mistake: Barack Obama

US President Barack Obama warned Sunday that it would be a “mistake” to send Western troops into Syria to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

In an interview with the BBC, he said the US would continue strikes against the Islamic State group while continuing efforts to broker a transition deal between the Assad regime and his moderate Syrian opponents. “Syria has been a heart-breaking situation of enormous complexity, and I don’t think there are any simple solutions,” Mr Obama said during his visit to London which ended Sunday. “It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain, or a combination of Western states to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime”.

“But I do believe that we can apply international pressure to all the parties, including Russia and Iran, who, essentially, are propping up Assad, as well as those moderate oppositions that exist and may be fighting inside of Syria, to sit down at the table and try to broker a transition,” he said.

The statement comes as rebel and regime bombardment in Syria’s Aleppo on Sunday killed at least 14 civilians, emergency workers, a monitor said, on the third day of renewed violence in the battered city.

Rebel rocket fire on government-held parts of the city killed six civilians, including a woman and two children, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

And a barrage of government air strikes that began around midday on Sunday left at least eight civilians dead.

The strikes killed five people in a fruit and vegetable market in the neighbourhood of Sakhur, said a member of Aleppo’s civil defence.

Regime aerial bombardment left two civilians dead in the district of Shaar and another in Bab al-Nayrab, the source added.

Since a partial truce came into force in Syria on February 27, Aleppo city has seen a dramatic drop in air strikes and rocket fire.