Coalition strikes on Raqqa 'killed 1,600 civilians'

BBC World News ^ | Apr. 25 , 2019 | BBC World News

[LeoWindhorse]

More than 1,600 civilians were killed in US-led coalition air and artillery strikes during the offensive to oust the Islamic State group from the Syrian city of Raqqa in 2017, activists say.

Amnesty International and monitoring group Airwars said they had carried out investigations at 200 strike locations and identified 1,000 of the victims.

They urged the coalition to "end almost two years of denial" about such deaths.

The coalition says there were 180 civilian casualties in its campaign.

Commanders say all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties were taken in those cases and that the decisions to strike complied with the law of armed conflict.

[Lent]

Welcome to war. Just like the fire bombing of Nazi cities which killed thousands of civilians, being a Muslim doesn’t make you exempt from being a casualty of war.

[TangoLimaSierra]

Islamist civilian = Someone that just dropped their AK-47

'Zactly what I was going to say.

[katana]

London, Coventry, Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Nagoya, Osaka, Tokyo, Hanoi, Haiphong, Belgrade, Baghdad ... War from the sky is indeed Hell for all on the ground, innocents included. But the difference in result compared with a city being destroyed by ground invasion is fewer tend to be killed from the air on both sides. Berlin and Manila 1945 are prime examples of what results from taking a city with ground forces. Even the toll in Hiroshima and Nagasaki pales in comparison with the literal millions who'd have died in a ground campaign on Honshu.

[Flintlock]

Howsabout it was just a retaliation for the Easter attack on those many Christian Churches by their co-’religionists’.

[FLT-bird]

I have no doubt plenty of civilians were blown to bits in coalition air strikes. Firstly, that is inevitable in war. Secondly, Goat effer State deliberately used civilians as human shields, did not wear uniforms, etc.

It seems to me that if you don’t wish to be subject to the tender mercies of 7th century goat fornicators and then risk getting blown to pieces when the civilized world hits back to stop the infection right there, you should fight like hell to keep them out in the first place.

[mbarker12474]

Do not assume the 1600 figure is anywhere close to accurate, even if you believe it justified if the correct figure actually is 1600.

[Zhang Fei]

[Far better to obliterate these people from the air , like going after cockroaches with a can of Raid . They are truly not worth suffering ground combat casualties over .]

---

I’m inclined to agree. The point at which I start worrying about enemy civilian casualties is when they start to exceed 1b dead compared to 1 of our own. Maybe. Now, we shouldn’t start deliberately slaughtering enemy civilians out of the clear blue sky - it’s traumatic for our people. But if those civilians get in the way of our missions against ISIS - fire away. We should not sacrifice our soldiers in combat to virtue signal - the only justification for risking their lives is if allied/friendly civilians are being held hostage. If enemy civilians are in the way - they should understand that acting as human shields for the enemy has consequences.

[RedMonqey]

One doesn’t have to be a photo analysist to see where the bombs fell, do we?

[blueplum]

the women who were transported out of Raqqa to camps have set up their own ‘morality police’ to harass and discipline the other women and children in the camps. They are also preaching jihad amongst themselves even as some plead with home countries to let them return as innocents. “Civilians” seems to be a stretch of reality.

[LeoWindhorse]

I had hoped to see the use of tactical nukes on Raqqa .
Nothing would have pleased me more than to see mushroom clouds rise in that valley

[LeoWindhorse]

Anyone , men or women , still pushing ISIS behaviors in the Kurd commanded camps should be pulled from the crowd and shot on the spot. Don’t even bother with burying them . Shoot um and leave um.

[sockmonkey]

Had the US, and it’s allies not financed regime change in Syria, Raqqa wouldn’t have happened. The legitimate gov’t of Syria, under Bashar Assad, and Syria’s invited allies were perfectly capable of taking out the trash.

Secular, westernized Syria posed no threat to the United States.

Karma is going to bite the US in the butt one of these days.

[Delta 21]

https://youtu.be/-wfdIAWMHbU

https://youtu.be/_qQza2eHQeQ?t=293

[LeoWindhorse]

I have to agree with you completly

This was 100% an Obama-Biden-Clinton foreign policy
instigation and failure . Syria also ties into what
happen in Libya and Benghazi .

Brennan included ; not one of these people has ever been
held accountable .

They left the shitstorm to trouble Trump .

[Nifster]

Seriously??? Who cares??

[AmericanCheeseFood]

Well when you decide to have your home used as a shelter and storage for enemies, things happen.

[hinckley buzzard]

Here’s a thought: lets talk about the RAF’s carpet bombing of civilian population centers during WW II.

My guess is, the BBC was all for it.

[robel]

Because, officially, they have no soldiers. Just concerned citizens with access to bombs and stuff.

[Hulka]

And how do we Know they were civilians?

We don’t.

[Hulka]

Not really. Bomber Harris suffered sanction from government and military senI or leaders Heck it was only a few years ago that Bomber Command finally received their monument.