The U.S.-led coalition has been accused of killing as many as 28 civilians, including a woman and seven children, near the northern Syrian city of Manbij on Thursday-the same area where U.S.-led airstrikes last week may have killed scores of civilians.
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Pictures from the area posted on social media showed the bodies of two children who appeared under 10 years old.
“Syrian government strongly condemns attacks against civilians, infrastructure and economy conducted by the so-called coalition, as well as by terrorists and calls for end of these attacks and crimes and to punish the guilty ones”, the statement said, as quoted by the Syrian SANA news agency.
The main Syrian opposition group had urged the US-led coalition to suspend its bombardments following the strikes. Following the Tokhar airstrikes, the SNC sent a letter to the foreign ministers of the coalition’s member nations demanding immediate suspension of the coalition’s military operations to allow for a thorough investigation of that attack. An anti-IS militia is battling the militants in the city, street by street, as coalition forces tighten a circle around Islamic State’s stronghold in the city. Assad’s forces in recent days made a strategic advance in their battle to take control of the besieged city by closing off the last remaining supply route to the “rebel”-held eastern half”.
Centcom’s latest undercount of the number of civilians killed in United States airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria was released today, claiming only 14 civilians killed between July of 2015 and the end of April, bringing the official “overall” toll to 55 killed in the entire war.
A coalition spokesman announced Wednesday that the USA military was formally investigating claims that an airstrike in Manbij on July 19 killed as many as several dozen civilians.
Since August 2014, between 773 and 1,180 civilians have reportedly been killed by coalition airstrikes in Syria, according to Airwars.
Responding to the plan, the USA, however, said on Friday that Syria’s peace process could be derailed if Russia’s motives surrounding huminatarian corridors were not genuine.
The envoy also warned that “the clock is ticking for the Aleppo population”.
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“Everyone carrying arms… and sought by justice… is excluded from full punishment if they hand themselves in and lay down their weapons”, SANA said, quoting a presidential decree on the three-month amnesty offer.
