0
Monday 22 October 2018 - 07:04

Syria writes to UN about US 'war crime' after airstrike in Dayr al-Zawr

Story Code : 757225
This picture shows displaced Syrians from the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr and the northern city of Raqqah, walking around at a camp, October 17, 2018. (Photo by AFP)
This picture shows displaced Syrians from the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr and the northern city of Raqqah, walking around at a camp, October 17, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Two separate letters were sent to the UN chief and president of the UN Security Council by Syria’s Foreign Ministry, calling the massacre “a war crime and a crime against humanity,” the official SANA news agency said. 

The Friday attacks targeted the villages of al-Sousa and al-Bubadran in Dayr al-Zawr, killing 62 civilians, mostly women and children. The airstrikes also injured an unidentified number of others, some of whom are in critical condition.

The bloodshed “proves once again the coalition’s disregard for international law and the international humanitarian law,” a part of the letter read.

It “belies the coalition’s claims of fighting ISIS terrorism while in reality it is supporting its continuity in Syria,” the letters added, referring to the Daesh terror group by another acronym.

The letters demanded that the UN Security Council take “a prompt action to end these crimes."

The US and its allies invaded Syria in 2014 under the pretext of fighting Daesh. They forwent Syria's consent in launching the invasion which still continues even though Washington claimed victory over the Takfiri group last year.

Airstrikes by the US and its allies across the Arab country have killed more than 3,300 civilians, according to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which is based in London.

The letters reminded the world body of Syria's earlier complaints about escalating US attacks on innocent civilians and Washington's use of weapons of mass destruction, including white phosphorus, in bombing residential areas in Dayr al-Zawr, Raqqah, Aleppo, and Hasakah provinces.

‘US act of war’
“The very fact that the US military is operating inside Syria is an act of war,” Ken Stone of Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War said.

“Unlike Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, the US does not have a permission of the Syrian government to do so. So, they are operating illegally in terms of international law and in terms of even US domestic law. This is a war crime,” he added.

Stone said the US and its allies created Daesh terrorists and brought them to Syria to cause havoc in the Arab country.

There is overwhelming evidence now that the US and its coalition partners, including Canada, "routinely help ... fund, advise ISIS and the other terrorist groups," he said. 

“So, the Syrian government has every right to go to the United Nations,” he said.
Comment