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Dozens of civilians killed in US-led airstrike on Isis stronghold in Syria Dozens of civilians killed in US-led airstrike on Isis stronghold in Syria
(about 2 hours later)
At least 33 people have been killed in a US-led coalition strike on a school used as a centre for displaced people near a jihadi-held town in Syria, a monitor said. An airstrike by the US led coalition against Isis on a school west of Raqqa has killed at least 33 people, many of whom had fled nearby fighting, sparking further concerns that new rules of engagements may be causing a spike in civilian casualties.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike south of al-Mansoura, a town held by Islamic State in the northern province of Raqqa, took place in the early hours of Tuesday. The attack follows a separate US strike on a mosque complex in Syria’s north-west last Saturday, which killed at least 52 people and led to fears that a White House ordered review of rules governing the use of drones has already given military planners more flexibility on ordering strikes.
Top officials from the 68-nation alliance fighting Isis are to meet in Washington on Wednesday to hear more about Donald Trump’s plan to destroy the jihadis’ remaining strongholds in Iraq and Syria. Activists inside Syria said that the attack west of Raqqa took place in the same area where Kurdish forces backed by the US had begun an operation on Thursday to separate the town of Tabqa from Isis’s last urban stronghold in Syria.
The US-led coalition has been bombing Isis since 2014 and is backing a major offensive to defeat the group in Raqqa city, the Syrian heart of the group’s “Islamic caliphate”. “There were only two survivors from this,” said one witness. “And they have still been buried. Most of these people, maybe all of them, had taken shelter in this building from the fighting and the planes. They were hiding for their lives.”
The school turned shelter hit on Tuesday morning lies about 20 miles (30km) west of Raqqa. Donald Trump has pledged to wind back restrictions on how and when US drones can be used anywhere in the world, while at the same time signalling a more muscular approach to targeting the Islamic State terror group and al-Qada franchises in northern Syria.
“We can now confirm that 33 people were killed, and they were displaced civilians from Raqqa, Aleppo and Homs,” said the head of the observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman. As US troops and their proxies began a major offensive west of Raqqa on Thursday, fears continued to mount that the new posture had led to fewer restrictions on what can be targeted in active war zones, such as Syria and Iraq.
“They’re still pulling bodies out of the rubble until now. Only two people were pulled out alive.” “There has not been a decree to that effect yet,” said a senior regional military source. “But there has been a definite change in mood. Often that is all it takes.”
The Britain-based monitor – which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information – says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved. If approved, the new rules being sought by Trump would mean that the Pentagon could approve attacks without presidential consent and that the threshold of “near certainty” that there be no civilian deaths be open to potentially looser interpretation.
“Raqqa is being slaughtered silently”, is how an activist group that publishes news from Isis-held territory in Syria reported the strike. “The school that was targeted hosts nearly 50 displaced families.” The US military has acknowledged that warplanes flown under the coalition banner were active in the area on Tuesday and pledged to investigate whether civilians were among those killed. It also admitted to carrying out the strike in Idlib, which it said targeted an al-Qaida planning meeting, but denied that the building hit had been a mosque.
Syrian state news agency Sana also reported the air raid, accusing the US-led coalition of inflicting dozens of casualties and almost completely destroying the school site. Images from the site and witness accounts confirmed that the targeted building had been part of a mosque compound.
Earlier this month, the coalition said its raids in Syria and Iraq had unintentionally killed at least 220 civilians. But other monitors say the number is far higher. Over the past eight months, there have been four cases in Syria in which US planes or drones have been blamed for mass civilian casualties. The first strike took place last July near the town of Manbij, which, at the time, was being recaptured from Isis. Up to 150 civilians are thought to have died in the attack, the single deadliest strike since the US first jets to Syria to bomb Isis and al-Qaida in late 2014.
More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad. Since then, up to 3,500 civilians have been killed in northern Syria by a Russian and Syrian air campaign to over eastern Aleppo and Idlib province.
The conflict has since evolved into a multi-front war that has facilitated the rise of jihadi groups and drawn in international powers, including the US. The US has conducted close to 3,000 airstrikes against isis targets in northern Syria, with thousands more in Iraq in support of Iraqi forces. Barack Obama defined the US role as partnering with local militaries and proxies and acting in support of them. President Trump appears to have given his officials commanders more latitude to take leading roles. The defence secretary, Jim Mattis, a former commander of the US Marine Corps, personally ordered 500 marines to be deployed north of Syria to provide artillery fire in support of an eventual ground operation.
The US president has ordered his generals to craft an accelerated strategy to “eradicate” Isis’s caliphate, and allied countries are keen to learn more at Wednesday’s meeting. In the meantime though, Iraqi forces, backed by US airstrikes continue to press into a pivotal neighbourhood of the Iraqi city of Mosul. By Thursday night, they were several hundred metres away from the Grand Mosque, where Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed himself leader of a caliphate almost three years ago.
Coalition partners are expected to provide feedback on a revised anti-Isis plan drafted by the Pentagon and presented to Trump last month. At least two-thirds of Mosul has now been recaptured from Isis and what remains of the organisation there has been confined to the north-west of the city. Nearly six months into the war to reclaim Iraq’s second biggest city, there are growing hopes that the battle may be finished before the onset of summer, allowing focus to be switched to Raqqa – potentially the last major battle fought against Isis.
“We are getting there now,” said an Iraqi colonel, whose troops were supporting the push on the Grand Mosque. “Every yard they have had to fight for and I know they have surprises waiting. Any civilian that can get out, we are grateful for. The conditions there are very tough. We are trying to do everything we can to protect them. But Isis are not.”