At least eight civilians have lost their lives and nearly a dozen others sustained injuries when the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group conducted a series of airstrikes in Syria’s embattled eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr. RNA - Local sources told Syria’s official news agency SANA that the aerial attacks hit al-Baghuz town in the Abu Kamal district of the province on Wednesday afternoon, leaving three women and five children dead and several others injured.
The sources noted that the death toll is expected to rise as some people have been critically wounded in the airstrikes.
The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes and operations against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.
The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying Daesh.
Syria has on numerous occasions condemned airstrikes by the US-led coalition, asking the UN to force Washington and its allies to put an end to their military intervention in the Arab country.
On January 19, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, in two separate letters addressed to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the Security Council, Francisco Antonio Cortorreal, censured US-led coalition strikes conducted against al-Baghuz al-Tahtani village in Dayr al-Zawr province a week earlier, saying the US-led warplanes had targeted dozens of families fleeing from areas controlled by Daesh.
According to Press TV, local sources, requesting not be named, told SANA on January 18 that 20 people were killed when US-led warplanes bombarded residential buildings in the village.
“This new crime is in line with the criminal acts that the US-led coalition is perpetrating systematically and on a daily basis against Syrian people, and in flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said the letters.
“The activities of this alliance are illegal as it has been formed outside the UN framework. Such acts have only contributed to the expansion of extremist terrorist organizations, especially Daesh. Cooperation and coordination between these terrorist groups and this alliance has been documented in numerous letters that [the] Syrian Arab Republic has sent to the Security Council,” added the letters.
The ministry also condemned in the strongest terms the US-led coalition’s continued attacks against the conflict-plagued country’s critical infrastructure, energy facilities and public and private property.
It also called on the UN Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities as regards to the establishment of international peace and security, and put an immediate halt to crimes against humanity that were being carried out by this “rogue” coalition against Syrian civilians and infrastructure.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry demanded that the Council take necessary measures to set an international mechanism to punish the perpetrators of such crimes.
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