Image copyright ReutersAn attack on a Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) warehouse and a United Nations aid convoy in a rebel-held part of northern Syria on Monday killed more than 20 civilians, including one aid worker.
The United States believes Russian warplanes bombed the convoy. Russia, a key ally of the Syrian government, has rejected the accusation and blamed an incident on the ground.
The dispute has further complicated efforts to revive a week-old truce brokered by the two powers.
What happened?
The SARC said the convoy consisted of 31 lorries loaded with non-food items, clothes and paediatric nutrients, supported by the World Food Programme, UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and UN Children"s Fund (Unicef), and the International Organisation for Migration.
On Monday afternoon, after co-ordinating with all parties on the ground, the convoy reached a SARC warehouse in Urum al-Kubra, a rebel-held town about 12km (8 miles) west of the divided second city of Aleppo, from where the aid was to be distributed to some 78,000 civilians, the SARC added.
At around 19:00 (16:00 GMT), as they were being unloaded, the attack on the lorries began, witnesses said. It was to last more than three hours.
Ammar al-Salmo, a volunteer search-and-rescue worker from the Syria Civil Defence, was in the area at the time and told Human Rights Watch: "We heard helicopters in the air just before the attack.
"The fires and strikes were so bad that we weren"t able to even start a response to save people until three in the morning. That"s when we started to pull out the deceased from under the rubble," he added.
"It is known to everyone in Urum al-Kubra and the area that this is a Red Crescent warehouse and there are no military bases around it."
Photos and videos of the aftermath of the attack showed dead and injured people, destroyed buildings and charred lorries, and damaged boxes of food and other supplies bearing the logos of the Red Cross, Red Crescent and UN agencies.
On Tuesday morning, the SARC confirmed the deaths of around 20 civilians and the director of its Urum al-Kubra sub-branch, Omar Barakat.
Of the 31 aid lorries, 18 were totally destroyed. The warehouse and an adjoining clinic operated by the SARC were also damaged.
Who is to blame?
The UN has said it is not yet in a position to determine how the convoy was attacked. But the US, which backs the rebels, has said its information clearly indicates it was an air strike.
"That means there only could have been two entities responsible, either the Syrian regime or the Russian government," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters on Tuesday.
"In any event we hold the Russian government responsible for air strikes in this space given that their commitment under the cessation of hostilities was to ground air operations in places where humanitarian assistance is flowing."
US officials told the BBC that two Russian SU-24 ground attack aircraft were in the sky above the convoy at the precise moment it was hit, and that the strike was too sophisticated to have been carried out by the Syrian air force.
Russia has expressed "outrage" at the allegations, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova telling reporters that the US "has no facts" to support them.
Defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said analysts had studied videos filmed by activists and "did not find any evidence that the convoy had been struck by ordnance".
"There are no craters and the exterior of the vehicles do not have the kind of damage consistent with blasts caused by bombs dropped from the air," he explained, suggesting that the damage to the convoy was caused by its cargo catching fire.
However, photographs do appear to show one crater inside the warehouse.
Mr Konashenkov added that the incident occurred as jihadist militants from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which was known as al-Nusra Front until it broke off formal ties with al-Qaeda in July, started an offensive in nearby Aleppo.
The Russian defence ministry separately released surveillance footage filmed by a drone, which it said showed the stationary aid convoy being passed by a pick-up truck towing a large-calibre mortar.
The foreign ministry said the US accusations seemed designed to "distract attention" from the accidental killing of more than 60 Syrian soldiers in Deir al-Zour on Saturday in an air strike by the US-led coalition against so-called Islamic State.
Was this a war crime?
The UN"s Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Stephen O"Brien, has called for an immediate, impartial and independent investigation into the incident.
UN officials stressed that officials had "completely deconflicted" the aid delivery with all parties beforehand by obtaining necessary permits from the government and notifying combatants on the ground of the lorries" movements. The convoy was also clearly marked as humanitarian.
"International humanitarian law and human rights law plainly set out the basic responsibilities of warring parties to ensure the necessary protection of all humanitarian organizations, including personnel, facilities and other relief assets," Mr O"Brien said.
"Let me be clear: if this callous attack is found to be a deliberate targeting of humanitarians, it would amount to a war crime."
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, described the attack as a "flagrant violation of international humanitarian law".
Syria aid convoy attack: What we know
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