Dozens Killed in Regime Air Raids on Al Raqqa

Assad’s air force carried out air raids on the city of Al Raqqa, targeting mosques and schools. Activists said that the attacks had left at least 26 people killed, including many children. Simultaneously, the international anti-ISIS coalition conducted air strikes on ISIS’s targets in the city, reportedly causing civilian casualties. Meanwhile, rebel fighters continue to hold off the regime forces’ attempts to storm the district of Jobar in Damascus, while regime forces shelled the Yarmouk refugee camp with heavy machine guns. Salem al-Meslet, spokesman for the Syrian Coalition, criticized the international community’s inaction towards the humanitarian crisis in Syria, stressing that “the failure to support the Syrian people in their struggle for freedom would further plunge Syria into chaos and destruction, which in turn would leave the door open for the proliferation of terrorism.” Meslet’s statements followed the Assad regime’s ferocious aerial shelling on the city of AL Raqqa, where dozens of civilians were killed over the past five days. Nasr al-Hariri, Secretary General of the Syrian Coalition, decries the silence of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition over Al Raqqa massacre in which dozens of civilians were killed by Assad’s air force. “The world chose to remain silent over one of Assad’s most horrible massacres, committed not only against the people of Al Raqqa, but against all humanity. Over 130 civilians were killed and hundreds wounded when Assad’s air force carried out nine air raids on the city. The US-led coalition’s lack of clear and coherent strategy on Syria would risks throwing many disappointed Syrians in the arms of extremist groups, not out of conviction of their fanatic principles, but out of the growing frustration over the failure of the international community to offer them a better alternative.” Burhan Ghalioun, member of the Syrian Coalition, said that the international anti-ISIS coalition bears some of the responsibility for this massacre as it has exposed the covert coordination between the Assad regime and the US-led coalition whose strategy has further emboldened the Assad regime to continue with its genocidal massacres against the Syrian people.” Ghalioun also lays responsibility for Al Raqqa massacre, and Assad’s other atrocities, on the UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council because they have so far failed to compel the Assad regime stop its barrel bombing of civilians. These atrocities are an inevitable result of the political and ethical resignation of the international community, led by the United Nations and its Secretary General who buckled under the Assad regime’s extortion and its threats of spilling over the conflict into the rest of the region. The Syrian National Council said in a statement released today that Al Raqqa massacre has revealed the extent of the international community’s tacit collusion with the Assad regime, which, out of total confidence that its crimes will go unpunished, continues to terrorize the Syrian people in an attempt to break their will and bring them to their kneels. It has also uncovered the de facto coordination between the two sides. Being fully aware that the goal of the international anti-ISIS coalition is not protecting the Syrian civilians, the Assad regime has been further emboldened to commit more massacres. While the people of Al Raqqa have been subjected to all forms of violations at the hands of ISIS, Assad’s unleashes his air force to rain death and destruction on the city under the eyes of the international anti-ISSI alliance whose warplanes do not leave the skies of the city. This massacre has further exposed the glaring contradictions of the international anti-ISIS which has so far failed to save the Syrian people from the terrorism of ISIS and the Assad regime. (Source: Syrian Coalition)