Islamic State and the Assad regime have been co-operating in the illicit oil trade and on the battlefield, according to documents handed over by Isis defectors.
The papers support claims that President Assad tolerated and nurtured the terrorist group to undermine mainstream opposition.
One example in the largely hand-written documents, which were given to Sky News and cannot be independently verified, is the regime’s recapture of Palmyra last month. It is claimed that Isis’s withdrawal from the city was arranged and agreed with Assad’s forces, which were widely hailed as liberators when they swept in.
The documents contain similar material relating to oil trading. One document requests passage through Isis checkpoints for a driver so that he can reach the frontline and trade his oil cargo for fertiliser, which is commonly used to make explosives.
Mr Assad’s forces have long avoided direct confrontation with Isis, and most strikes are against the moderate opposition, which is itself fighting Isis.
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Opposition areas in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, have been marked by bloodshed over the past 12 days, and the main children’s hospital has been destroyed in an ¬airstrike while five members of the White Helmets, a search-and-rescue team funded by the UK, were killed when their base was hit.
A clinic was also hit at the weekend along with a warehouse storing medical supplies provided by Médecins Sans Frontières , the French charity. Three people were killed yesterday when an ambulance evacuating injured people was hit by an airstrike.
More than 250 people, at least 50 of them children, have been killed in Aleppo since a ceasefire brokered in February collapsed a fortnight ago.
Diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed in the city hit a wall last night after rebel leaders accused the international community of “justifying Assad’s terrorism against the Syrian people”.
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, was in Geneva scrambling to revive the truce. Russia and the Assad regime insist that they are only targeting the Nusra Front, which is affiliated to al-Qaeda and was not included in the February ceasefire. However, Assad and his allies lump all opposition groups in with the Nusra Front, even those that fight against them.
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After a morning of discussions with the Saudi foreign minister, Mr Kerry said that he would put pressure on mainstream rebel groups to separate themselves from the Nusra Front in an effort to get Russia to commit to a new ceasefire. “Both sides, the opposition and the regime, have contributed to this chaos, and we are working over the next hours intensely in order to try to restore the cessation of hostilities,” Mr Kerry said.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s Syria envoy, is due in Geneva today and will then fly to Moscow to try to reach an agreement.
One of Aleppo’s rebel leaders told The Times that Mr Kerry’s plan would not stop the bloodshed.
“What is happening in Aleppo is an organised killing process,” said Ward Furati, a political chief in the Fastaqim union, the largest Free Syrian Army brigade in the city. He said that Assad and Russia would use any green light to attack the Nusra Front as an excuse to attack all rebels.
Opposition activists in Aleppo also poured scorn on Mr Kerry’s statement. “Over the past week there have been over 300 strikes on Aleppo and none of them has hit military targets — only civilians,” Hadi Abdullah, said.
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The rebel-held neighbourhoods’ medical infrastructure has been devastated. Before 2011, eastern Aleppo had 1,500 doctors in 33 hospitals. Physicians for Human Rights says that there are now nine hospitals and only 35 to 50 doctors working at any one time, after 95 per cent of its medical staff fled.
Despite the ceasefire, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights there were 3,116 deaths recorded for April, including 859 civilians, one of the highest monthly death tolls of the five-year conflict.
