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US-led airstrikes kill nearly dozen civilians in Iraq, Syria

Friday, 03 February 2017 1:28 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 03 February 2017 3:13 AM ]

This file photo shows two US Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets after being refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker over Iraq. (Photo by AFP)

Nearly a dozen civilians have lost their lives when military aircraft from the US-led coalition purportedly fighting Daesh in Syria and Iraq carried out separate airstrikes in the northern parts of the two conflict-plagued Arab countries.

A statement from the coalition said on Thursday that a strike targeted a Daesh compound near Syria’s militant-held northern city of Raqqah on December 7 last year, claiming the lives of seven civilians.

Raqqah, which lies on the northern bank of the Euphrates River, was overrun by the Takfiri terrorists in March 2013, and was proclaimed the center for most of the terrorists’ administrative and control tasks the next year.

Additionally, two civilians were killed on December 9, when US-led jets hit an area near the strategic northern Iraqi city of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad.

The attacks are not the first US-led airstrikes that lead to civilian casualties.

At least eight civilians lost their lives on January 6, when coalition fighter jets pounded the village of Suwaydiyah al-Kabirah, which is situated approximately 55 kilometers west of Raqqah, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Nearly 20 civilians were killed in a US-led strike targeting al-Msheirfeh region north of Raqqah on December 8. Several people also sustained injuries in the blitz.

Iraqis search through rubble after a US-led coalition airstrike targeted a Shia mourning ceremony in the town of Daquq, south of the city of Kirkuk, on October 21, 2016. (Photo by Iraqi al-Ghad news agency)

On October 21, 2016, at least 15 women lost their lives and scores of other civilians sustained injuries when US-led military aircraft targeted a Shia place of worship in Daquq town of Iraq’s oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk.

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The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be the Daesh terrorists inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The coalition has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of fulfilling its declared aim of destroying Daesh.

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