On Sunday, government forces besieged rebel-held neighborhoods of the contested city.
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The London-based rights group, Amnesty International, said in a statement Tuesday that since June, more than 100 civilians have been reportedly killed in suspected attacks by the U.S.-led coalition in the Manbij area.
There’s a really devastating reason why you’ve been seeing people post the hashtag #PrayforSyria to their feeds all day: Reports are emerging now that airstrikes this week from the United States and other Western nations targeting ISIS-held territories have actually killed dozens of civilians in the war-torn country.
Meanwhile, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces said that 95 people were killed in the strikes in Manbij and al-Tukhar.
They said 11 children were among those killed in the strikes as they fled from the town – nine miles north of Manbij – on Tuesday morning.
The SDF, an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters backed by the U.S., launched an offensive against ISIL to retake the city of Manbij late last month.
As NPR’s Alison Meuse told our Newscast unit, reports suggest the strike near the northern town of Manbij is the “largest civilian death toll since the intervention began”.
The ISIS run Amaq news agency said that 160 civilians were killed in raids on the Manbij countryside, whilst an global coalition source did not deny that airstrikes had been carried out in Manbij recently and said that an investigation into the matter is being carried out.
The rare video below of an U.S.-backed airstrike near Manbij on July 5 was tweeted on Monday.
“We believe that such incidents indicate a major loophole in the current operational rules followed by the worldwide coalition in conducting strikes in populated areas”, said the letter.
Clashes and air strikes continued today in Manbij, where SDF forces advanced overnight, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The groups condemned the attacks and called on coalition forces to step up efforts to prevent civilian deaths. “We’ll investigate these reports and continue to do all we can to protect civilians from harm”.
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The Syrian foreign ministry blamed Tuesday’s air strike on French forces while he said Monday’s strikes were carried out by American jets. Another unnamed opposition activist network reported that as many as 90 people had been killed in recent Operation Inherent Resolve strikes around Tokhar and Hoshriya, according to the report.
