The Killing of 267 Civilians at the hands of The International Coalition
I- Introduction
Since the US-led international coalition commenced its military intervention on Syria on 23 September 2014 to fight the terrorist group ISIL, we started to document the violations it committed against the International Humanitarian Law. SNHR has issued 9 previous reports that document different shelling incidents and massacres that were committed against civilians in the light of the evidence and information we have.
This report comes after the Russian military intervention in Syria, who supported and lined up along one of the main conflict parties, the Syrian regime and its Iranian allies. The magnitude of the crimes and violations that were committed by the Russian forces greatly exceeds that of the International coalition. The latter concentrated its attacks on ISIL stronghold, except for four attacks which targeted armed opposition and civilians. Nonetheless, most of the Russian attacks targeted civilians and regions that are under the control of armed opposition deliberately and killed 15027 civilians; which is a strike contrast to what Russian authorities claim about advocating human rights.
Even though we believe that it is not enough, International coalition forces admit to making some mistakes regarding the shelling incidents. It also conducted some investigations, nonetheless, the Russian authorities categorically deny any killing or shelling incident and falsely accuse SNHR of fabricating this information or any shelling incidents perpetrated by its ally the Syrian regime. The political administration of the international coalition forces has to pressure the military command to acknowledge all the violations it commits and conduct more transparent investigations. Denying the shelling incidents just like the Russian and Syrian regime will not change any of the facts.
As stated in previous reports, the international coalition strikes have without a doubt weakened ISIL’s power; however it was mainly focused on ISIL’s borders with the Kurdish Self Management forces, the main forces in the PYD party, aiming to overthrow ISIL and replace them with Kurdish Self Management forces. Therefore, international coalition forces are accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes that bare ethnic nature, thus its military operations raises several warnings and affects its credibility.
The fruitless Iraqi scenario is being repeated again in Syria, as we cannot fight injustice with tyranny or support oppression. On the other hand, ISIL stronghold in Palmyra and Al Qaryatayn city in Homs eastern suburbs were not targeted at all.