US-led airstrikes kill 56 civilians in Syria

At least 56 civilians were killed on Tuesday in airstrikes launched by a US-led coalition near the Islamic State-held northern Syrian city of Minbij, a monitoring group said.

The raids hit the village of al-Tukhar al-Kabir north of Minbij, which is the focus of a US-backed campaign by Kurdish-led ground forces, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The US said it was aware of the reported civilian casualties and was conducting a "credibility assessment."

"We are taking it very seriously," Pentagon spokesman Adrian Rankine-Galloway said. Amnesty International called for an independent inquiry into the raids, saying they could represent the highest civilian death toll since the US-led coalition against Islamic State began air operations in Syria in 2014.

A spokesman for the Kurdish-led Democratic Forces of Syria (DFS) said they had observed a large concentration of Islamic State fighters in the village and their information had indicated it was empty of civilians. The coalition airstrikes hit an Islamic State tank, artillery piece and explosive-rigged vehicle, killing many fighters, Shervan Darwish said. He did not give a figure for civilian casualties.

Observatory director Rami Abdel-Rahman said he believed the raids were carried out by US or US-allied planes and hit civilian targets by mistake. Some 11 children were among the dead, he said. Two former residents of the area said locals they had spoken to put the death toll at 100 or more.

Mohammed al-Bou Sultan, who is from al-Tukhar al-Kabir and lives in Turkey, said residents had told him that more than 100 people have been killed by the raids, most of them women and children. "The raids took place at dawn while people were sleeping," he told journalists, adding that there were bodies still buried under the rubble.

"I have documented by name some 100 people who were killed in the strikes," Mohammed al-Khatib, who lives in Germany and is a member of Minbij's exiled pro-opposition town council, reported by phone.

The DFS have besieged Minbij since early June in an attempt to cut off Islamic State's access to the nearby Turkish border. Islamic State fighters have resisted fiercely in street fighting inside the city and have staged diversionary attacks from surrounding areas that remain under their control.

US Central Command said that the DFS had captured an Islamic State headquarters in a hospital inside Minbij on Sunday as they advanced towards the city centre. The coalition had carried out more than 450 airstrikes targeting Islamic State assets and positions since the Minbij campaign began on 31 May, it added.

The observatory on Monday reported 21 civilians killed in airstrikes in and near Minbij, bringing the total number of civilians killed in airstrikes in the area since operations began at the end of May to 104, not including Tuesday's toll.

Meanwhile, both the Syrian government, which considers the coalition air campaign a violation of its sovereignty and the opposition Syrian National Coalition condemned Tuesday's airstrikes.

The DFS are effectively led by the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that has been the most powerful force fighting Islamic State militants on the ground in Syria. Backed by coalition airstrikes, they have driven the extremist group from a wide swath of northern Syria since the beginning of last year. Also on Tuesday, 21 civilians were killed in airstrikes, apparently by Russian warplanes, on the town of Atarib near Aleppo, the Observatory said.    (dpa)

Related articles on Qantara.de:

Syrian conflict: Everyone against everyone

Syria: human rights violations and torture: The toll of the missing

Egypt's people-smuggling mafia: Where crossings cost but lives are cheap