New China / Xinhua.net & AntiWar.com – 2017-09-25 15:49:36
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-09/24/c_136634178.htm
US-led Airstrikes Kill 2,617 Civilians in Syria:
615 Children Among the Slain
New China / Xinhua.net
DAMASCUS (September 24, 2017) — A total of 2,617 civilians have been killed in the US-led anti-terror operations in Syria since late 2014, a monitor group reported Saturday. The death toll includes 615 children and 443 women, said the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The casualties were documented in the provinces of Hasakah, Raqqa, Aleppo, Idlib and Deir al-Zour, the group added.
The US-led coalition has been backing the Kurdish-led fighters in northern Syria in their fight against Islamic State militants. The Syrian government has repeatedly slammed the coalition’s intervention in Syria as illegitimate, and urged the UN to dissolve the coalition, citing the civilian casualties.
Monitors: US Airstrikes Have Killed 2,617 Civilians in Syria
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
(September 24, 2017) – While the official Pentagon reports on civilian deaths claim far fewer deaths, NGOs have been consistently documenting a massive number of civilian bystanders killed in America’s air war in Iraq and Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the total at 2,617 civilians killed in US-led strikes just in Syria. This included 615 children and 443 women. It also doesn’t include the much larger tolls believed to have been inflicted in Iraq.
The Pentagon has put the overall toll closer to 700 civilians killed across both countries, and they also reckon a large majority in Iraq. Within Syria, the largest number of civilians were killed in Raqqa, but it also includes civilians slain in Manbij, as well as elsewhere around the country.
Despite the US struggles with providing anything resembling accurate death tolls for their airstrikes, both the Syrian Observatory and Airwars have proven quite successful at offering estimates that are seen as closely in-line with what’s been reported within the media and by civilians on the ground.
The Pentagon, by contrast, tends to operate on wishful thinking, insisting any really large tolls are “not credible” and excluding them from the reports, despite many of those having substantial evidence of having occurred.
Trump’s First Airstrikes on Libya Kill 17
AFRICOM Says Struck Site Was ISIS Camp
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
(September 24, 2017) – For the first time since President Trump’s inauguration, the US has carried out airstrikes inside Libya, bombing what they described as an ISIS camp within central Libya, southeast of Sirte. 17 people were killed, and the US claimed all were ISIS.
African Command (AFRICOM) claimed that the drone strikes targeted a desert camp, which “had been connected to multiple attacks across Europe.” Such a claim is common in US military attacks in nations the US is not engaged in a war.
That’s because legally speaking such strikes rest on them being special cases involving specific threats to allies. This language features in official reports on myriad US airstrikes across Africa in recent years.
The last US airstrikes in Libya took place the day before Trump’s inauguration, killing over 80 people around Sirte. The Pentagon gave almost an identical justification at the time that everyone killed was “external plotters” for ISIS, and tried to connect the killings to a recent attack in Germany.
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