Attack on IS HQ ‘had a heavy civilian toll’

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April 26, 2019

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Attack on IS HQ ‘had a heavy civilian toll’

Source: Agencies | 06:59 UTC+8 April 26, 2019 |

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The US-backed assault to drive Islamic State from its Syrian capital Raqqa in 2017 killed more than 1,600 civilians, 10 times the toll the coalition itself has acknowledged, Amnesty International and the monitoring group Airwars said yesterday.

Amnesty and Airwars, a London-based group set up in 2014 to monitor the impact of the US-led campaign against Islamic State, spent 18 months researching civilian deaths including two months on the ground in Raqqa, they said.

“Our conclusive finding after all this is that the US-led coalition’s military offensive (US, UK and French forces) directly caused more than 1,600 civilian deaths in Raqqa,” they said.

They said the cases they had documented probably amounted to violations of international humanitarian law and called for coalition members to create a fund to compensate victims and their families.

The coalition said in response to the report that it takes “all reasonable measures to minimize civilian casualties” and that there are still open allegations it is investigating.

“Any unintentional loss of life during the defeat of Daesh is tragic,” said Scott Rawlinson, a coalition spokesman in an e-mailed statement yesterday, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

“However it must be balanced against the risk of enabling Daesh to continue terrorist activities, causing pain and suffering to anyone they choose.”

Islamic State seized Raqqa in early 2014 during its lightning advance through Syria and Iraq in which it built a self-proclaimed caliphate characterized by summary executions of opponents. Its mass killing and enslavement of minorities were described as genocide by the United Nations.

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Attack on IS HQ ‘had a heavy civilian toll’

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