TASS Russian News Agency
Bomb-destroyed houses spotted in Syrian locality where Russian warplanes not used
This territory has never been in the hands of the Islamic State, deputy chief of the Russian General Staff Andrey Kartapolov points out
AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic
Traces of airstrikes against household buildings have been found at the Syria-Jordan border, where Russian warplanes have performed no missions, deputy chief of the Russian General Staff Andrey Kartapolov said on Friday.
"We have spotted ruins of household buildings destroyed by bombing near the settlement of Kherbet Ghazala at the Syrian-Jordan border," he told a briefing for foreign military attaches and journalists.
"Russian warplanes have never performed any missions there and, as far as we know, the Syrian aviation has not been used there either," he stressed. "This territory has never been in the hands of the Islamic State. Moreover, this area has been controlled by the Free Syrian Army since 2013."
He demonstrated photos of the area featuring bomb-destroyed buildings. "You can see on these photos that there are no signs of military activity around these cottages, there are no military hardware, not even signs of military hardware. These are regular gardens and fields with buildings to keep farming tools," he said.
"Why destroy these buildings? It looks like somebody’s pilots were just training their skills or dropped bombs to report to their command about completed mission," Kartapolov said.
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Independent
Russia in Syria: Moscow air strikes 'have killed thousands of civilians' already, warns UK Defence Secretary
Michael Fallon says Russia's ongoing operations raise risk of accidental confrontation with Western forces
Mr Fallon says Russia is prolonging the war by targeting all opponents of President Assad EPA Read More Here
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CNN
U.S. official: Doctors Without Borders 'did everything right' before airstrike
Washington (CNN)The initial findings of an investigation into a U.S. airstrike against a hospital
in Kunduz, Afghanistan have concluded that the U.S. government was
aware the site was a hospital, two U.S. officials told CNN Friday. But
that information did not get passed to the correct military personnel,
they said.
The officials declined
to be identified because the investigation remains ongoing, and both
emphasized the initial information could still change as the
investigation proceeds. But Doctors Without Borders (MSF), who ran the
hospital, "did everything right in informing us," one of the officials
said. The location of the hospital "was in the military database" of
restricted sites such as hospitals, mosques and schools that U.S. pilots
are not allowed to strike even if insurgents are present.
Military
investigators are reviewing all available audio tapes and other
technical data that may have passed from a command center to the air
crew, and also to a special operations forces unit on the ground that
was talking to the plane.
Investigators
are also looking at whether the crew may have voiced concern about
engaging any target in that area of Kunduz since it did not appear to
meet the criteria for U.S. airstrikes. Under the "rules of engagement"
strikes are permitted to protect U.S. forces, to hit targets associated
with al Qaeda or to prevent mass casualties among Afghan forces.
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As US Bombs Iraq and Syria, Who Exactly Is Being Killed?
Pentagon provides scant information about people dying at its hands, while reports of civilian casualties emerge from the ground
The
rubble of a home reportedly hit by a U.S.-led coalition airstrike in
Kafar Daryan in Syria. (Photo: Sami Ali / AFP/Getty Images)
As the United States passes week seven of its expanded war on Iraq,
and week two of air strikes across Syria, a critical question remains
unanswered: Who exactly is dying in the air bombardments?
Many fear this question will remain unanswered. "I'm concerned that the U.S. is not held to the same standard as other countries when it comes to violating international law and killing civilians," Raed Jarrar, Policy Impact Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, told Common Dreams.
The U.S. military and government have provided virtually no information about civilian and combatant casualties and have denied on-the-ground reports that innocent people are being killed and wounded in the escalating attacks.
But this official version of events is contradicted by mounting reports from Syria. As recently as Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that overnight U.S. coalition bombings of alleged ISIS positions in northern and eastern Syria took civilian lives, the exact number unspecified. Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman told the Associated Press that a strike on a grain silo in the town of Manbij in Aleppo province "killed only civilians there, workers at the site. There was no ISIS inside." He added that the bombings "destroyed the food that was stored there."
The U.S. military on Monday denied the civilian deaths to Reuters but presented no evidence backing its claims. A U.S. Central Command statement released Monday offered no further information about civilian or combatant deaths, stating that air strikes were conducted against a "ISIL vehicles within a staging area adjacent to an ISIL-held grain storage facility near Manbij," in addition to other targets.
The Observatory is not the only organization to sound the alarm on civilian deaths. Human Rights Watch released a report on Sunday that apparent U.S. missile strikes on Idlib in Syria on September 23 killed at least seven civilians. "Three local residents told Human Rights Watch that missiles killed at least two men, two women, and five children," reads the report. Video footage from local residents and the Shaam News Network, available on the HRW website, appear to verify that civilians were wounded and killed in the strikes. According to some estimates, as many as 24 civilians were killed in coalition air strikes on this day.
Pentagon Spokesperson Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby denied those civilian deaths as well, again offering no evidence. "This is a pretty remote area of the country, mostly just desert. It's not — it's not urban," he told the Associated Press. "We don't believe that there's much reason to be too concerned about any collateral damage, you know, to civilian property, that kind of thing."
But numerous journalists say their contacts corroborate reports of civilian deaths, including Foreign Policy's Shane Harris, who tweeted:
The Pentagon has also claimed that civilians are spared in its ongoing bombings of Iraq, which now number over 240 strikes since August eighth. But the U.S. has offered no evidence backing this claim, and the National Iraqi News Agency has reported that civilians have died in U.S. strikes on the country. Numerous voices from Iraq and across the world warn that the renewed U.S. war in the country is bringing further militarization and death to ordinary Iraqi people, who are squeezed between siege from ISIS and strikes from above.
According to Jarrar, the failure of the U.S. to account for the Iraqis killed in the 2003 war raises serious concerns about U.S. accountability and honesty over who it kills. "There is strong evidence that the U.S.-led attacks have killed dozens of civilians in Syria in the last few weeks and killed tens and thousands of civilians in Iraq over the last decade, and we haven't seen any investigations into these crimes," said Jarrar. "There is no reason to believe the U.S. will investigate itself."
Robert Naiman, policy director for Just Foreign Policy, told Common Dreams, "There is a big danger here that U.S. air strikes in Syria are going to resemble the drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen in the sense that there is no accountability for who is killed. We have reports of civilian casualties from people in the area and the U.S. government says, 'No, they are bad guys.' There has to be some public accountability for what happens when there are allegations of civilian casualties."
According to Jarrar, the U.S. hand in civilian deaths extends beyond direct bombings. "The indirect U.S. intervention is left unchecked as well: U.S. training and funding and equipping proxy groups in Iraq and Syria. There is very strong evidence that many of the U.S. allies that have been receiving us military assistance and training and equipments have been committing gross human rights violations and the U.S. has not been held accountable."
Many fear this question will remain unanswered. "I'm concerned that the U.S. is not held to the same standard as other countries when it comes to violating international law and killing civilians," Raed Jarrar, Policy Impact Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, told Common Dreams.
The U.S. military and government have provided virtually no information about civilian and combatant casualties and have denied on-the-ground reports that innocent people are being killed and wounded in the escalating attacks.
But this official version of events is contradicted by mounting reports from Syria. As recently as Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that overnight U.S. coalition bombings of alleged ISIS positions in northern and eastern Syria took civilian lives, the exact number unspecified. Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman told the Associated Press that a strike on a grain silo in the town of Manbij in Aleppo province "killed only civilians there, workers at the site. There was no ISIS inside." He added that the bombings "destroyed the food that was stored there."
The U.S. military on Monday denied the civilian deaths to Reuters but presented no evidence backing its claims. A U.S. Central Command statement released Monday offered no further information about civilian or combatant deaths, stating that air strikes were conducted against a "ISIL vehicles within a staging area adjacent to an ISIL-held grain storage facility near Manbij," in addition to other targets.
The Observatory is not the only organization to sound the alarm on civilian deaths. Human Rights Watch released a report on Sunday that apparent U.S. missile strikes on Idlib in Syria on September 23 killed at least seven civilians. "Three local residents told Human Rights Watch that missiles killed at least two men, two women, and five children," reads the report. Video footage from local residents and the Shaam News Network, available on the HRW website, appear to verify that civilians were wounded and killed in the strikes. According to some estimates, as many as 24 civilians were killed in coalition air strikes on this day.
Pentagon Spokesperson Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby denied those civilian deaths as well, again offering no evidence. "This is a pretty remote area of the country, mostly just desert. It's not — it's not urban," he told the Associated Press. "We don't believe that there's much reason to be too concerned about any collateral damage, you know, to civilian property, that kind of thing."
But numerous journalists say their contacts corroborate reports of civilian deaths, including Foreign Policy's Shane Harris, who tweeted:
The Pentagon has also claimed that civilians are spared in its ongoing bombings of Iraq, which now number over 240 strikes since August eighth. But the U.S. has offered no evidence backing this claim, and the National Iraqi News Agency has reported that civilians have died in U.S. strikes on the country. Numerous voices from Iraq and across the world warn that the renewed U.S. war in the country is bringing further militarization and death to ordinary Iraqi people, who are squeezed between siege from ISIS and strikes from above.
According to Jarrar, the failure of the U.S. to account for the Iraqis killed in the 2003 war raises serious concerns about U.S. accountability and honesty over who it kills. "There is strong evidence that the U.S.-led attacks have killed dozens of civilians in Syria in the last few weeks and killed tens and thousands of civilians in Iraq over the last decade, and we haven't seen any investigations into these crimes," said Jarrar. "There is no reason to believe the U.S. will investigate itself."
Robert Naiman, policy director for Just Foreign Policy, told Common Dreams, "There is a big danger here that U.S. air strikes in Syria are going to resemble the drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen in the sense that there is no accountability for who is killed. We have reports of civilian casualties from people in the area and the U.S. government says, 'No, they are bad guys.' There has to be some public accountability for what happens when there are allegations of civilian casualties."
According to Jarrar, the U.S. hand in civilian deaths extends beyond direct bombings. "The indirect U.S. intervention is left unchecked as well: U.S. training and funding and equipping proxy groups in Iraq and Syria. There is very strong evidence that many of the U.S. allies that have been receiving us military assistance and training and equipments have been committing gross human rights violations and the U.S. has not been held accountable."
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented death of 250124 persons since 18/03/2011, which witnessed the fall of the first martyr in Daraa, until 10/15/2015.The casualties are as follows:Civilians: 115627 including: 12517 children and 8062 female over the age of 18 YPG, the rebel and Islamist fighters: 41201 Defected soldiers and officers: 2551 Arab fighters from Gulf countries, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt, North Africa, Palestine, Jordan, Sudan ... Read more
