WARPLANES of the US-led international coalition shelled a hospital and perpetrated a new massacre in Syria on Saturday, claiming the lives of six civilians and injuring ten others in Abu Kamal city in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor.
The warplanes of the coalition shelled Aish Hospital, al-Nadi and al-Shuhada’a roundabout in Abu Kamal city, killing six civilians, among them women and children, and injuring ten others, in addition to causing material damage to the infrastructure.
This was the fourth air raid of the coalition in Deir Ezzor over the month. Also on Saturday, the coalition, which ostensibly fights Daesh, hit houses in al-Mayadeen, killing ten people, including five children.
Last Thursday, 27th July, a US-led coalition airstrike in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor claimed the lives of 18 civilians and left over 20 injured. Eyewitnesses specified that the attack hit Tayba, located in the western part of the province near Mayadeen, also damaging houses and local infrastructure.
In late June three coalition airstrikes killed 90 civilians, including women and children, in al-Mayadeen. The US-led coalition of 68 nations started to carry out airstrikes against Daesh in Syria and Iraq in 2014, with the strikes in Syria not authorised by the government of President Bashar Assad or the UN Security Council.
Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary Johnson has spoken out in support of US President Trump’s order to launch a missile strike on Syria following allegations of a chemical attack in April, describing the move as a ‘kinetic’ response.
Johnson, speaking in Australia last Thursday, praised Trump’s reaction to the so-called ‘Khan Shaykhun gas attack’. He said: ‘Actually, the Americans responded to the barbaric massacre on 4th April, when up to 100 people died in a chemical weapons attack, by kinetic action, which the Obama administration never did.’
Following the Khan Shaykhun incident on April 4th, the Western states and their regional allies rushed to pin the blame on the Syrian government, without providing any evidence to support their accusations.
Syria, however, rejected using banned weapons during its anti-terrorism operations, while the Russian Defence Ministry said the Syrian air force had targeted a terrorists’ arms depot in the area that was believed to have contained some chemicals. Damascus and Moscow also called for a thorough and impartial investigation into the incident.
