The human rights office of the Union of Local Coordination Committees has documented 44 massacres committed by the Assad regime in Syria during May 2015. The biggest massacres took place in the town of al-Bab north of Aleppo on May 30 when 57 people were killed in a barrel bomb attack on the town and the Jisr al-Haj massacre in which 47 people were killed in a similar attack on Aleppo on May 12.
During the same period, ISIS committed seven massacres in which 71 people were documented executed by this extremist group in Deir Ezzor in addition to four civilians in Aleppo.
Spokesman for the Syrian Coalition Salem al-Meslet stresses that “every crime carried out by Assad’s air force is a direct result of the UN Security Council’s failure to protect civilians by enforcing safe zones that could have saved tens of thousands of lives over the past four years.
“It is absolutely necessary that the international anti-ISIS coalition rethink its strategy and reform it through the inclusion of the Assad regime on its targets since it is the primary sponsor and the source of terrorism,” Meslet said.
Meslet stresses that the Assad regime’s escalation of bombardment of residential areas comes as a retaliation to the successive series of defeats its forces suffering on multiple fronts. “These vengeful desperate attacks on unarmed civilians, while failing to break the will of the Syrian people, serve as a sign of the regime’s inevitable downfall. No matter what the regime unleashes on civilians: barrel bombs, chemical weapons, and recently naval mines, the revolution will continue unabated until its aims are fully achieved.” (Source: Syrian Coalition)
