NGO assessment concludes U.N. convoy was 'deliberately' bombed in Syria

The Syrian government had seen and approved of the route the U.N. humanitarian aid convoy was going to take before Monday's fatal bombing, leading to a stronger belief that the attack was intentional, and thus a war crime, BuzzFeed reports.

War planes struck aid trucks in the Urm al-Kubra region, near Aleppo, on Monday, killing at least 12. Airstrikes also hit a warehouse run by the Syrian Red Crescent, which was established and its location well-known to the Syrian government. The government had also received updates as the convoy of 31 trucks traveled through rebel-held territory.

"With all this knowledge of [the delivery] in advance, and the fact that it was pre-planned, and the fact that all parties of the conflict were notified, how could this attack take place?" U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesman David Swanson said.

Syria and Russia have both denied responsibility for the attack, which occurred just hours after the disintegration of a ceasefire.

"The question [is] whether it was deliberate? The answer is undoubtedly," an NGO working in Syria said in an assessment shown to BuzzFeed on the condition that the NGO not be named. "This was cross-line aid, in other words pre-approved by [the Syrian government], which would have had a copy of the convoy paperwork. On that paperwork, all predicted arrival and departure times are listed, and GPS coordinates provided for every location mentioned."