Syria Regime Raining Death on Aleppo, Says HRW

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية W460

Syrian regime forces are raining death on Aleppo, killing hundreds of people in air strikes that were either "criminally" indiscriminate or "deliberately" aimed at civilians, a rights group said Saturday.

"Government forces have really been wreaking disaster on Aleppo in the last month, killing men, women, and children alike," said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"The Syrian Air Force is either criminally incompetent, doesn't care whether it kills scores of civilians -- or deliberately targets civilian areas," Solvang added.

The HRW statement comes six days after the launch of a massive aerial campaign against opposition-held areas of Aleppo, once Syria's commercial capital, involving dozens of warplane strikes and helicopter attacks using TNT-packed barrels.

The New York-based organization cited the Syrian Network for Human Rights as saying 232 civilians were killed from December 15 to 18.

HRW concluded that the attacks, which targeted both Aleppo city and its province, showed "government forces had used means and methods of warfare that... could not distinguish between civilians and combatants, making attacks indiscriminate and therefore unlawful".

The group also condemned the reported use of the highly destructive so-called barrel bombs.

HRW "believes that military commanders should not, as a matter of policy, order the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas due to the foreseeable harm to civilians," it said.

HRW also lashed out against rebels for firing rockets and mortar rounds into civilian areas in government-controlled parts of Aleppo.

The city has been split into rebel and regime-controlled areas since mid-summer last year, when rebels launched a massive offensive to try to take Syria's second city.

Ever since, Aleppo has suffered daily violence.

In the latest escalation of fighting, even schools were targeted, said HRW.

The statement cites a field doctor as saying at least 14 civilians, including two teachers, four children and one woman, were killed in an explosion at a school in rebel-held east of Aleppo.

"When I reached the Taiba school I saw that a rocket had struck just outside the gate of the school. Several people who were standing next to the gate were killed," HRW cited the doctor as saying.

"One 11-year-old boy, our neighbor, had been cut into three pieces. I also saw the guard and three or four teachers who were killed."

Comments 9
Thumb cedre 21 December 2013, 15:19

Where are the M8 drones to condemn this ?FT ? Movatin ? Nobody ? Crying for the killings of few Christians (that we condemn of course) but silent for 100k+ sunnis, so who's sectarian now ? Is this selective humanity ?

Thumb Mystic 22 December 2013, 12:29

Don't forget about Naharnets fabrication of false evidence, always taken from Syrian Observatory of so called human rights. Normal people gets killed by the Takfiris, they use the women and children as human shields, and child soldiers. So who is to blame if civilians die? The Terrorist takfiris ofcourse.

Missing peace 21 December 2013, 17:37

sure M8ers will deny this because it means acknowledging massacres by their bashar friend while they perfectly know that bashar is slaughtering innocent people to create fear and terror....

if they support these massacres their brain would bug!how can they cry at islamists massacres while supporting those of bashar! so they just deny it and accuse NGO to be partial when it suit them but resort to them when it suits them too! LOL

double standard M8 as usual....

Missing peace 22 December 2013, 02:13

then you praise bashar that made as much war crimes as the islamists... isn't there a flaw in your logic? LOL

Missing peace 21 December 2013, 17:39

no bashar fights israel to liberate his land doesn't he? LOL

oh! no, he prefers using his war planes to bomb his own population but never israel as a coward he is....

Missing abraham 21 December 2013, 17:58

listen bird brains
you better know the end game when you start a revolution or a war
wars are terrible, and human suffering physically and specially mentally is very tough
don't sell your soul for any price

Missing peace 21 December 2013, 23:38

then in your logic you should praise the sunni extremists like alqaeda that want to eradicate israel form the map! LOL
tell us why do you defend bashar over the islamists that want to fight israel ??? some logic problems you have! LOL

Missing peace 22 December 2013, 02:12

i m just saying that alqaeda like hezbollah want to erase israel... doesn't that make them allies? LOL

Thumb Mystic 22 December 2013, 12:35

It's 100% sure this is just propaganda as always. Where is naharnet when the christians got slaughtered by Al Qaeda? No where, but when Al Qaeda gets bombed they yell and scream just like the saudis, and no i don't believe it was civilians that got hit, i think 99% of them were takfiris. Just propaganda as always