| | | Date: Nov 16, 2018 | | Source: The Daily Star |  |  |  |
| | Coalition raids kill 18 in Syria: activist group | BEIRUT: U.S.-led Global Coalition airstrikes killed 18 civilians, including eight children, in a night raid Wednesday in an eastern Syria holdout of Daesh (ISIS), an activist group said Thursday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said those killed in the attack on the town of Al-Soussa, in Deir al-Zor province, were internally displaced people from the Syrian village of Al-Baghouz, which borders Iraq.
The strike brings the total death from the coalition raids in eastern Syria since last week to 99, the observatory said, including 43 children.
Activist group DeirEzzor24 named eight of those killed; Mahmoud al-Abdullah and his two wives Qadifa al-Halef and Samira al-Jasim, Hameed al-Abdullah and his two wives Warda al-Azaawi and Khilfeh al-Hussein, Hamdan al-Abdullah and his wife Warda al-Ahmad.
The Syrian National Coalition condemned the attacks and said that the Global Coalition must cease its targeting of civilians in Deir al-Zor.
“Today’s massacre came after a series of massacres that took place during the past few days in disregard for the lives of civilians,” the SNC said in a press release. “We call for an immediate halt to raids targeting civilians areas, regardless of any justification.”
The latest incident followed a report last week from the observatory that claimed that coalition strikes had killed over 70 civilians in eastern Syria over a span of three days. Most of those killed were reportedly children.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused the coalition of using phosphorous bombs during its air campaign, the Russian news site RIA said Thursday.
Christopher Ghika, a deputy commander in the Global Coalition against Daesh, said that every allegation of civilian victims is investigated.
The U.S.-led coalition’s “Operation Inherent Resolve” supports the offensive, initially launched on Sept. 10, primarily through air support.
The SDF announced Sunday that it was restarting the assault following “intensive contacts” with the coalition, after it was forced late last month to suspend operations after Turkish shelling killed four of its fighters. |
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