Fresh US-led airstrikes leave 17 Syrian civilians dead in Dayr al-Zawr

Rasa - More than a dozen civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed after the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group carried out a series of aerial assaults in Syria’s troubled eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr.

News ID: 442140

Date: 17 December 2018 - 10:14

RNA - Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that 17 people were killed on Sunday when US-led warplanes bombarded residential buildings in Albu Khatir village, which lies southeast of the town of Hajin.

The report added that the air raids also severely damaged private property in the targeted area.

Local sources told Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency on December 12 that a US-led coalition airstrike targeted a residential building in al-Kashmah neighborhood of al-Shaafah town, which lies in Abu Kamal district of Dayr al-Zawr province, the previous night, leaving 15 people dead.

Sources noted that the victims were all members of the same family.

The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes 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.

On November 13, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned a recent airstrike by the so-called US-led coalition against the eastern town of al-Shaafah, which left more than 60 people dead and injured, arguing that the massacre clearly pointed to the fact that members of the military alliance had no respect for moral values, international rules and regulations besides the lives of innocent civilians.

According to Press TV, the ministry, in two separate letters, addressed to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the former rotating president of the UN Security Council Ma Zhaoxu, called on the Security Council to fulfill its responsibilities and stop US-led aerial assaults.

It also asked the world body to propose an international, independent and impartial mechanism to investigate the crimes being perpetrated by the so-called US-led coalition.

The letters noted that the coalition was deliberately targeting Syrian civilians and making use of internationally banned weapons, including white phosphorus bombs, in Syria.

The ministry stressed that the so-called US-led coalition airstrikes were meant to kill as many Syrian people as possible, prolong the ongoing Syrian conflict, destroy the country’s infrastructure and undermine its sovereignty and territorial integrity in flagrant violation of all UN Security Council resolutions on Syria.

The letters concluded that the embarrassing silence of the Security Council had encouraged the coalition to kill more Syrian civilians and destroy their property.

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