Over 120 civilians killed by US-led coalition airstrikes in Syria in 1 month – Russian military

Scores of civilians have been killed in the past month as a result of indiscriminate US-led coalition strikes in eastern Syria, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

The ministry issued the sobering statement during a Wednesday briefing.

More than 120 civilians have died over the past month alone as the result of airstrikes on Syrian settlements in eastern Syria.

It added that Kurdish fighters sometimes come under the coalition’s fire. “Low effectiveness” and the “nonselective character” of coalition strikes are to blame for the death toll. What’s even more concerning is that the bombardment is being done with the use of “munition banned by international conventions.”

Civilian casualties aside, Washington’s “poor” strategy – as well as that of its allies - only let Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) reclaim some of the territories lost earlier, the Russian military noted. This includes Hajin, As-Susah, As Safana and Al Marashda. Meanwhile, the terrorists are still being supplied with modern weapons, the MoD said, without pinning blame directly on the US-led coalition. The routes for such supplies are being tracked down and investigated.

Speaking at the briefing, Major General Igor Konashenkov explained that life in the US-controlled areas is in shambles and the situation in Syria’s Raqqa is a striking example of this. The city was “wiped out” by the airstrikes and thousands of bodies are still under the rubble of the destroyed buildings, he added.

Human rights organizations have repeatedly sounded alarm about consequences of the operation in Raqqa. In June, Amnesty International released a damning report on the destruction and massive death toll caused by the coalition strikes. It said that civilians were essentially trapped in the city as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by airstrikes, battled terrorists. 

The organization specifically castigated the coalition for “artificially low civilian casualty figures.”

Notably, the Combined Joint Task Force, which is in charge of Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria, admitted that the number of people “unintentionally killed” by strikes surpassed 1,000. The latest figures, released by the mission, say that at least 1114 civilians died in the strikes between August 2014 and the end of September 2018.

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