‘Beyond a massacre: France deliberately bombed Syrian civilians after Nice attack’

Western coalition forces knew they were attacking an area inhabited by civilians and yet they carried out a bombing. How can 30 airstrikes be a mistake? How can they all be a mistake, political commentator Marwa Osman asked RT.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has written to the UN blaming US and French warplanes for the deaths of more than 100 civilians near the city of Manbij.

The alleged French act of aggression claimed the lives of more than 120 civilians, most of them children, women and elderly. The fate of scores of other civilians still under the debris is unknown. The letter also mentioned the French air strikes came a day after US warplanes conducted a bombing raid, which Damascus claims killed 20 other civilians.

RT: In January, the US-led coalition was reportedly (as claimed by CNN) prepared for up to 50 civilian deaths when it decided to target an ISIS cash vault. Can the risk of so-called collateral damage be justified for the greater good?

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‘Bloody massacres’: Syria appeals to UN after French & US airstrikes ‘kill over 140 civilians’

Marwa Osman: They blatantly call it ‘collateral damage’ when it is lives of the Syrian people which are being lost here. No one is talking about this, about the grave lives of the people who are living in Syria because of this coalition, because of the support this coalition has been giving to all sorts of groups. We already saw that the same thing in the French bombing, we saw the same thing that happened in a school in Iraq’s Nineveh massacre of 36 children after ISIS claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks. And now after the Nice attack, we see this in Syria. This is beyond unacceptable, this is beyond a massacre. They knew that this is an inhabited area by civilians and yet they did it. How can 30 airstrikes be a mistake? How can they all be a mistake? This is unacceptable…

RT: How is it possible the US claims it doesn't know anything about this airstrike and that they're still gathering information?

MO: They’re still gathering information? How come they did an airstrike without the information? I am sorry but we are not idiots. Our minds are not somewhere backwards. We know what is happening. We know that every flight that is being made costs more than $200,000 for a jet to go up in the air. And I am very sure that any state that gets a jet up in the air to bomb someone knows exactly what they are bombing. What they did is a… retaliatory move, a fast move just to breed blood in the streets of Syria just to say to the French and the US public: “Look, we are fighting ISIS.” This is not how they fight ISIS. They fight ISIS by stopping the Turkish state from opening its borders where they infiltrate, by stopping the funding, by stopping the arming and by stopping the so-called moderate rebels who yesterday killed a 12-year-old boy. These are the moderates of the US. The US recognizes the support for this Nour al-Din al-Zenki brigade that killed the boy. And trust me, they know who they are because today they told them: “We are going to stop the funding if you continue doing this.” They have been doing this for the past five years. They know everything that is going on. I surely appreciate what the Syrian government is doing by sending this message to the UN but this is not enough... This is definitely not enough. Syrians are suffering; they are dying by the hundreds. People need to wake up and see what their governments are doing and stop them. Because it is their tax payments that are causing the suffering over the world, especially in Syria and Iraq. I am very sure that they know who they are fighting and bombing, but they just pretend that they don’t know.

RT: Do you think there will be an independent and transparent investigation of the incident? Will those responsible be held accountable?

MO: The 9/11 didn’t have any sort of a real investigation, do you think any investigation inside of Syria will come up with some sort of solution or conclusion that will give a closure to the people that lost their family members? No, I don’t think that is going to happen any time. They are not even going to pay a dollar to make this investigation happen…