Syria demands mechanism to investigate US-led coalition’s crimes

BEIRUT: The Syrian government has demanded an independent and international mechanism to investigate the crimes being perpetrated against civilians by the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh group. The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, in two separate letters addressed to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the UN Security Council Ma Zhaoxu on Saturday, stated that the Friday airstrikes by the US-led coalition against the eastern town of Hajin near the Iraqi border, which claimed the lives of at least 26 local civilians, including 14 children, once again exposed Washington’s false claims of combating terrorism and revealed that the military alliance had no respect whatsoever for the lives of innocent people and international law.

The letters added that the US-led coalition’s goals were to kill as many Syrian people as possible, further destroy Syria’s infrastructure, undermine the country’s future, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and hinder a political settlement of the ongoing crisis.

“All these attempts constitute a blatant violation of all United Nations Security Council resolutions on Syria,” the Syrian foreign ministry said.“Whilst the United States and its allies continue to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Security Council has maintained an awkward silence and failed to take any measure to stop these misdeeds,” it pointed out.

The Syrian foreign ministry highlighted that the Damascus government had on several occasions pointed to the US-led coalition’s systematically barbaric attacks against innocent civilians, and its use of internationally banned weapons, including white phosphorus bombs.The ministry then called on the UN Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities, and propose an independent and international mechanism to help stop the coalition’s crimes, investigate them and punish their perpetrators.The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying Daesh. Jihadists have killed at least eight Syrian government troops near a planned buffer zone around the country’s last major rebel bastion, a monitor said on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack took place late on Friday in the north of Hama province near the planned buffer zone around rebel-held territory in neighbouring Idlib.