The Latest: Russia hits back at Boris Johnson criticism

Government forces captured Palestinian refugee camp of Handarat.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the conflict in Syria (all times local):

6 p.m.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry is taking a slap at Boris Johnson for his suggestion that Russia has committed war crimes in Syria.

Following the British Foreign Minister’s comments, Russian ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova quickly responded on Facebook Sunday, saying:

“The foreign minister of Great Britain Boris Johnson said in a broadcast of the BBC that Russia is guilty of protracting civil war in Syria and, possibly, of committing war crimes in the form of air attacks on convoys with humanitarian aid. All this is right except for two words: Instead of ‘Russia’ it needs to be ‘Great Britain’ and instead of ‘Syria,’ ‘Iraq.'”

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5:45 p.m.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says Russia should be investigated for war crimes following an attack on a Syrian aid convoy that claimed 20 lives.

Johnson said Sunday that Russian air power may have deliberately targeted the civilian convoy on Sept. 19. Russia denies involvement and instead suggests Syrian rebels or a U.S. drone were responsible.

Johnson said the West had been “too impotent in its response” to aggression by Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Russian backers during Syria’s civil war, now in its sixth year.

He said Russia is “guilty of protracting this war, of making it far more hideous. And yes … we should be looking at whether or not that targeting is done in the knowledge that those are wholly innocent civilian targets. That is a war crime.”

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5:30 P.M.

France’s foreign minister says Russia and Iran will be guilty of war crimes if they don’t pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad to stop escalating violence.

Jean-Marc Ayrault said an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting Sunday is a “moment of truth” for the U.N.

He said Assad’s regime “has clearly made the choice of a military escalation. I am calling on Russia and Iran to pull themselves together and show responsibility, by putting a stop to this strategy. … If not, Russia and Iran will be accomplices in war crimes committed in Aleppo.”

The U.S, Britain, and France sought Sunday’s meeting, as pro-government forces continued their intense bombardment of Aleppo. They are widely believed to be accompanied by Russian air strikes.

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3 p.m.

A monitoring group says Syrian rebels have retaken an area in Aleppo that fell to government forces the day before, extending a punishing stalemate in the contested northern city.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which maintains a network of local contacts, says rebels seized Handarat, a largely uninhabited Palestinian refugee camp, early Sunday.

The area is near Castello Road, a vital supply route to the city’s besieged rebel-held areas. Government forces seized the Castello Road earlier this year, besieging rebel-held districts where some 250,000 people reside.

Yasser al-Yousef, a spokesman for the Nour el-Din al-Zinki rebel faction, says rebels seized Handarat late Saturday.

The Observatory says 213 civilians have been killed by airstrikes and shelling on rebel-held areas in and around Aleppo since a cease-fire expired Monday.