DAMASCUS (Xinhua) – It’s time to expose the crimes of the U.S.-led coalition in killing thousands of civilians in Syria’s northern Raqqah province by airstrikes and shelling, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said on Monday night.
In a statement, the ministry said that the U.S.-led coalition must be held accountable for the “war crimes” committed in Raqqah, the former de-facto capital of the Daesh terrorist group, in 2017.
“The U.S. military operation launched by the coalition forces on Raqqah between June and October 2017 led to the almost complete destruction of the city and the extermination of thousands of civilians whose bodies were buried under the rubble,” the statement read.
It added that such practices are among the most heinous crimes which deserve more attention from the international community.
The extent of the damage to infrastructure, private and public properties, and the number of casualties testified that the United States and its allies perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the ministry.
“Syria reserves its right in holding governments of states that were involved with the U.S.-led coalition the political, moral, and legal responsibility for the crimes perpetrated by the military forces and for the losses and damage that affected the private and public properties,” it said.
The U.S.-led coalition’s aerial attacks in Raqqah took place between June and October 2017 and resulted in the full destruction of the city and the death of thousands of civilians, whose corpses were buried under debris.
The Syrian foreign ministry added that similar war crimes were perpetrated by the U.S.-led coalition and the U.S.-sponsored and Kurdish-led militants from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) between 2018 and 2019 in the northeastern Syrian town of Baghuz as the area was utterly destroyed.
The ministry also invoked a March 18, 2019 airstrike in which U.S. fighter jets killed at least 70 civilians, including women and children, as they were trying to flee Baghuz to save their lives.
It stressed that the enormous volume of damages inflicted upon public and private properties as well as critical infrastructure and the number of casualties in Raqqah, Ayn al-Arab, and Baghuz prove that the U.S. and its allies have committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity across Syria.
The Syrian foreign ministry emphasized it will continue to raise at international organizations the destruction and deliberate targeting of civilians by the U.S.-led coalition.
The United States and its allies invaded Syria in 2014 under the pretext of fighting Daesh terrorists. The terrorists had emerged as Washington was running out of excuses to extend its regional meddling or enlarge it in scale.