Syrian Coalition: Assad Regime’s War Crimes in East Ghouta Are Retaliation to its Defeats in Quneitra

Mohammad Khair Al-Wazir, member of the Syrian Coalition, said that the Assad’s regime brutal aerial bombardment of the district of Douma in East Ghouta qualifies as war crimes whose only aim is to avenge its defeats in Western Ghouta and Quneitra province. The systematic aerial bombardment on Douma that has claimed the lives of more than 250 civilians, as well as the killing, destruction and displacement wreaked by regime forces on the rest of Syrian cities and towns, puts the world in front of its legal, humanitarian and moral responsibilities to end the suffering of the Syrian people. The suffering of the people of Douma is not caused by aerial shelling alone, but also by a crippling siege that has been imposed by regime forces for months, comparable in its severity to the siege of the Israeli occupation of Gaza in Palestine. The Assad regime is fantasizing through these inhumane practices to bring the residents of Douma to their knees or to force them to sign humiliating truces, unaware that this can only happen when no men are left in Douma.” Al-Wazir said earlier that the “Assad regime’s carpet-bombing of the neighborhood of Jobar in Damascus qualifies as a war crime that must not pass unpunished. The Assad regime’s ferocious bombardment campaign on this strategic district aims to check the Free Syrian Army’s advance on the heart of the capital. Jobar has been bombed by all types of conventional and non-traditional weapons, in addition to being the scene of a chemical weapon attack.” A rebel commander in Jobar said that the rebel factions operating in the district were unified under one banner commanded by the Unified Command in East Ghouta, a step that aims to tip the balance on the battlefield once rebels are supplied with sufficient support and anti-armor weapons.” (Source: Syrian Coalition)