‘US troops pullout to shed light on coalition’s war crimes in Syria’

A military-diplomatic source says the planned withdrawal of US troops from Syria would expose the extent of war crimes committed by the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the war-ravaged Arab country.

“The upcoming withdrawal of US military personnel from Syria will most likely shed light on numerous war crimes committed by the international coalition during the so-called fight against [the] Daesh terrorist group.

“First of all, this concerns, of course, the much hyped liberation of Raqqah in October 2017, which has transformed into a ‘ghost city’ as a result of carpet bombings by coalition aircraft,” Russia’s Sputnik news agency quoted the unnamed source as saying.

The source went on to say that Takfiri militants operating in the al-Tanf region were constantly trying to flee from the area and take refuge either in adjacent regions or even in neighboring Jordan in the wake of the announcement of US plans to withdraw troops from Syria.

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“After the announcement of the imminent withdrawal of US soldiers, the entire ‘hive’ of the militants there … was set in motion. Almost every day, the militants attempt to break through from there not only to the territory controlled by Damascus in Syria, but also to Jordan,” the source said.

The source added that the heavy smoke around the Rukban refugee camp in al-Tanf could indicate that the militants were burning the corpses of refugees, who had perished from hunger and diseases due to the shortage of humanitarian aid supplies.

The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying Daesh.

Syria has on numerous occasions condemned airstrikes by the US-led coalition, asking the UN to force Washington and its allies to put an end to their military intervention in the Arab country.

On November 13, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned an airstrike earlier that month by the US-led coalition against the eastern town of al-Shaafah, which left more than 60 people dead and injured, arguing that the massacre clearly pointed to the fact that members of the military alliance had no respect for moral values, international rules and regulations besides the lives of innocent civilians.

The ministry, in two separate letters, addressed to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the former rotating president of the UN Security Council Ma Zhaoxu, called on the Security Council to fulfill its responsibilities and stop US-led aerial assaults.

It also asked the world body to propose an international, independent and impartial mechanism to investigate the crimes being perpetrated by the US-led coalition.

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The letters noted that the coalition was deliberately targeting Syrian civilians and making use of internationally banned weapons, including white phosphorus bombs, in Syria.

The ministry stressed that the US-led coalition airstrikes were meant to kill as many Syrian people as possible, prolong the ongoing Syria conflict, destroy the country’s infrastructure and undermine its sovereignty and territorial integrity in flagrant violation of all UN Security Council resolutions on the Arab country.

The letters concluded that the embarrassing silence of the Security Council had encouraged the coalition to kill more Syrian civilians and destroy their property.