Thousands of Syrians, Iraqis Killed in US Airstrikes Over Past Year

MOSCOW – Thousands of Syrian and Iraqi civilians have been killed in US airstrikes over the past year, a source in the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday, according to Sputnik

The statement was made in response to the statement by US Central Command spokesman Col. John Thomas that 64 people were killed and eight wounded in US airstrikes in Syria and Iraq in November 2015 — September 2016.

 “Listening to such statements from the US Central Command spokesman, we have an impression that the Pentagon does not consider the remaining thousands of Syrian and Iraqi civilians killed in US Air Force strikes to be humans. But even such an advanced stage of dishonesty and cynicism of US colleagues should have its limits,” the Russian source said.

 The statement noted that US Air Force has been conducting up to 20 strikes per day in Syria and Iraq, or about 7300 strikes in the past year.

“Moreover, a significant part of this ‘work’ has been assigned to the B-1B to the B-52H bombers, while the ‘humanity’ and ‘accuracy’ of their carpet bombings are well known since the days of the Vietnam War,” the statement added.

The US-led coalition of more than 60 nations has been conducting its so-called anti-terror aerial campaign in Syria and Iraq since 2014. The strikes in Syria have not been authorized by Damascus or the UN Security Council and they were proved to be ineffective I terms of fighting terrorists.

US Strikes Killed More Syrian Civilians Than Pentagon Claims – Amnesty

The real number of civilians killed in US airstrikes in Syria may be several times higher than what was announced by Pentagon, Neil Sammonds, a researcher on Syria, Lebanon and Jordan with the Amnesty International rights watchdog, told Sputnik on Thursday.

The Researcher was commenting on a statement made on Wednesday by US Central Command spokesman Col. John Thomas in which he claimed that US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria could have killed 64 civilians and injured eight others over the past year.

“The latest disclosure is in the right direction but we do not consider it to be adequate … None of the 11 incidents we examined carefully for our memo and found some 300 likely civilian casualties from them is included in the incidents here,” Sammonds said.

 According to Sammonds, the US authorities provided no evidence how the US authorities determined that none of the cited attacks was unlawful, “nor that all feasible precautions had been taken to protect civilian life.”

“The disclosure brings the overall acknowledged civilian deaths across both Iraq and Syria to be 119. As I said, from those 11 incidents alone we believe there were in the region of 300 civilians killed — and independent NGOs have documented at least 650 civilian killings in Syria alone. The actual, total figure is likely higher still,” he added.

Casualties Exceed Pentagon’s Estimate: ICRC

Commenting on the US Central Command spokesman, a source in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told RIA Novosti on Thursday that the real number of Syrian civilians killed in US airstrikes over the past year could surpass the Pentagon’s official estimate.

“We do not have detailed information about how many people fell victim to US airstrikes in Syria for the said period. However, even according to the most rough estimates, the real number may be much higher than this figure,” the ICRC source said.

Asked to specify by how much, the source said “by several times.”

H.M