© AP Photo/ Maya Alleruzzo
The Pentagon's conclusion that 119 deaths have resulted from US-led coalition strikes in Syria and Iraq represents only 5 or 10 percent of the actual civilian death toll in those countries, Neil Sammonds, an Amnesty International researcher focusing on Syria, told RT.
In the latest incident not included in the official tally,
at least 23 people, including seven children and nine women, were killed after the US-led anti-terrorist coalition bombed the village of Heisha in rural Raqqa on Tuesday, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces said in a statement.
While condemning the "horrific incident" the rebel group, supported by the West, called on the US coalition to stop "these repeated incidents" in which civilian areas were bombed.
"The Coalition reiterates calls for a thorough investigation into such incidents and for reviewing the rules procedure of operations against ISIS and holding accountable those responsible," the statement said.
Comment: The Red Cross (ICRC) concurs,
saying:
"We do not have detailed information about how many people fell victim to US airstrikes in Syria for the said period. However, even according to the most rough estimates, the real number may be much higher than this figure," the ICRC source said.
Asked to specify by how much, the source said "by several times."
How many? According to a
source in Russian Defense Ministry (who obviously has a motive to present the U.S. in a negative light, but just as obviously has the means to determine a more accurate figure):
"Listening to such statements from the US Central Command spokesman, we have an impression that the Pentagon does not consider the remaining thousands of Syrian and Iraqi civilians killed in US Air Force strikes to be humans. But even such an advanced stage of dishonesty and cynicism of US colleagues should have its limits," the Russian source said.
The statement noted that US Air Force has been conducting up to 20 strikes per day in Syria and Iraq, or about 7300 strikes in the past year.
"Moreover, a significant part of this 'work' has been assigned to the B-1B to the B-52H bombers, while the 'humanity' and 'accuracy' of their carpet bombings are well known since the days of the Vietnam War," the statement added.
Ouch.
Comment: Is it the year 2000 all over again? You'd think that after that expose of the electoral college, Americans would've made sure it never happened again. But no, they've been fine with it for the past 3 elections. They were fine with it going in to this election. The only reason Hillary supporters are upset with the system today is because they lost. By all means, reform the system. But don't think that a minuscule few million sore losers can justify retroactively changing a process they willingly participated in.
Sidebar: A question for the Killary supporters. Do you really think Clinton only managed to steal a puny 300,000 votes? It's unlikely she even legitimately won the popular vote...