70 civilians killed, injured as US-led coalition warplanes pound Syrian town

Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Syria’s official news agency SANA on Tuesday that the aerial attacks targeted the outskirts of al-Baghouz town, leaving 70 people dead and injured as a result.

The sources added that the airstrikes hit a makeshift camp, which internally displaced people had set up in the area after fleeing fierce exchanges of gunfire between the US-led coalition and the last remnants of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

They noted that the death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured are in a critical condition, and they cannot be moved since the area is under heavy shelling. 

On Saturday, US-led military aircraft bombarded al-Tayyaneh town in Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr province, leaving three people dead and several others injured.

The aerial assaults damaged some private and public property in the targeted area as well.

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 United Nations 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 urges UN action
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.     

Also on Tuesday, 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, Anatolio Ndong Mba, denounced the coalition strikes conducted against al-Baghouz town a day earlier, saying the US-led warplanes had pounded a refugee camp.

Local sources, requesting anonymity, told state-run Ikhbariyah Syria television news network that 16 civilians, including seven children, were killed as a result of the raid.

“This new crime is in line with the series of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which the US-led coalition has perpetrated against Syrian people, its continued support for terrorism, and its use of terrorists and separatist militia forces to advance its fiendish plots aimed at Syria’s sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity,” said the letters.

The ministry also called on the UN Security Council to stand up against such attacks and crimes.

It also demanded that the Council assume its responsibilities regarding the establishment of international peace and security, conduct an international probe into these criminal acts, condemn them, and put an immediate halt to these air raids as well as the “aggressive” presence of US and other foreign military forces on the Syrian soil.