{"id":18660,"date":"2018-10-16T07:24:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T07:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18660"},"modified":"2018-10-16T07:24:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T07:24:54","slug":"us-led-coalition-slammed-over-raqqa-civilian-killings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18660","title":{"rendered":"US-led coalition slammed over Raqqa civilian killings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBEIRUT: Amnesty International on Monday condemned the US-led coalition\u2019s failure to acknowledge and investigate its role in civilian killings during the battle a year ago to oust militants from Syria\u2019s Raqqa.<\/p>\n

\nIn October last year, a Kurdish-Arab alliance pushed Daesh out of the northern city, backed by airstrikes of the US-led coalition.<\/p>\n

\nDuring the campaign to expel militants from the city, hundreds of civilians were killed in the battle, most of them in coalition bombardments, Amnesty says.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe US-led coalition\u2019s ongoing failure to admit to, let alone adequately investigate, the shocking scale of civilian deaths and destruction it caused in Raqqa is a slap in the face for survivors,\u201d the London-based group said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\nOne year on, Amnesty says that the coalition had admitted to having caused just 100 civilians deaths in the Raqqa assault, but even in those cases accepted no liability.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt is completely reprehensible that the coalition refuses to acknowledge its role in most of the civilian casualties it caused,\u201d Amnesty\u2019s new secretary-general, Kumi Naidoo, said.<\/p>\n

\nAnd it is \u201cabhorrent that even where it has admitted responsibility, it accepts no obligation toward its victims,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nDenouncing a \u201cdisturbing pattern\u201d of civilian deaths, the rights groups urged the coalition to conduct a probe, both to establish the facts behind each deadly strike, and to avoid any future mistakes.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSurely, with hundreds of civilians dead, it begs the question what went wrong,\u201d Naidoo said, urging the coalition to look into issues such as weapons used and quality of intelligence.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThese are crucial details, to establish both facts and assess lawfulness, as well as learn the lessons necessary to avoid similar mistakes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nThe latter was \u201cfundamental to minimizing harm to civilians \u2014 a legal obligation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nDaesh overran large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014, declaring a so-called \u201ccaliphate\u201d there, and the coalition intervened the same year to fight the extremist group.<\/p>\n

\nThe militants have since seen their proto-state crumble, but cling on to a presence in the Syrian desert and in an eastern pocket on the Iraqi border where they are under attack by coalition-backed forces.<\/p>\n

\nSince 2014 the US-led coalition has acknowledged direct responsibility for more than 1,100 civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq, but rights groups put the number killed much higher.<\/p>\n

\nThe Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says coalition strikes in Syria alone have killed more than 3,300 civilians.<\/p>\n

\nSyria\u2019s war has killed more than 360,000 people since it erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-regime protests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT: Amnesty International on Monday condemned the US-led coalition\u2019s failure to acknowledge and investigate its role in civilian killings during the battle a year ago to oust militants from Syria\u2019s Raqqa. In October last year, a Kurdish-Arab alliance pushed Daesh out of the northern city, backed by airstrikes of the US-led coalition. During the campaign…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":18661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}