company:raqqa

Syria: Thousands of digital activists to track how US-led air strikes destroyed Raqqa | Amnesty International
▻https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/11/syria-thousands-of-digital-activists-to-track-how-us-led-air-strikes-destro
▻https://www.amnesty.org:443/remote.axd/aineupstrmediaprd.blob.core.windows.net/media/19239/251291.jpg?center=0.5,0.5&preset=fixed_1200_630

Thousands of digital activists around the world will take part in an innovative new crowdsourcing data project Amnesty International is launching today, which uses satellite imagery to help plot how the US-led military coalition’s bombings destroyed almost 80% of the Syrian city of Raqqa.

“Strike Tracker” is the next phase of an in-depth Amnesty International investigation, in partnership with Airwars, into the shocking scale of civilian casualties resulting from four months of US, UK and French bombardment to oust the armed group calling itself Islamic State (IS) from Raqqa.

Amnesty International’s field investigations and analysis since the battle ended in October 2017 presented compelling evidence of apparent violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by the US-led Coalition. They prompted the Coalition to revise its civilian death toll statistics upwards from 23 to more than 100 – a 300% increase.

“Based on our meticulous on-the-ground investigations, hundreds of interviews amid the rubble of Raqqa, and expert military and geospatial analysis, we’ve been able to push the US-led coalition to admit to almost every civilian death case we’ve documented so far. But with bodies still being recovered from the wreckage and mass graves more than a year later, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Milena Marin, Senior Adviser for Tactical Research on Amnesty International’s Crisis Response team.

With thousands of ‘Strike Trackers’ on the case to help us narrow down precisely when and where Coalition air and artillery strikes destroyed buildings, we can significantly scale up our ability to map out the apocalyptic destruction in Raqqa.

Morning Star :: Western terror bolsters Isis terror | The People’s Daily
▻https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-3e33-Western-terror-bolsters-Isis-terror

http://morningstaronline.co.uk/assets/static/images/default-og-image.png

the Guardian did report UN war crimes investigators recently saying the US-backed assault on the Syrian city of Raqqa, the defacto capital of Islamic State (Isis), had caused a “staggering loss of civilian life” — in a tiny article hidden on page 22 of the paper.

According to the UN inquiry at least 300 civilians have died in recent weeks, with over 160,000 people fleeing the intensifying air campaign.

The local activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently stated the US-led coalition bombing has destroyed “almost every important building in Raqqa,” including schools and mosques.

On top of this the New York Times reported local residents as saying the coalition were using munitions loaded with white phosphorus in eastern Raqqa (the use of white phosphorus in populated areas is prohibited under international law).

The coalition has also intensified its bombing campaign in Mosul, in an attempt to dislodge Isis’s grip on the northern Iraqi city, including a March 2017 air strike that is estimated to have killed around 200 civilian

U.S. Will Lose Syria to Iran and Abandon Kurdish Allies, Former Ambassador Says
▻http://www.newsweek.com/us-military-kurds-lose-iran-syria-former-ambassador-627395

Robert Ford, who served as envoy to Syria under former President Barack Obama from 2011 through 2014, said during an interview Monday with the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that “Obama did not leave the Trump administration many options to achieve its goal” of defeating the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and curbing Iran’s foothold in the region. While Iran and Russia back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against various insurgents and jihadists trying to topple him, the U.S. supports an irregular coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces, made up mostly of Kurds, but including other ethnic minorities and Arabs. Despite the group’s recent successes in storming ISIS’s de facto capital of Raqqa, Ford said “the game was finished” for U.S. plans to overthrow Assad or compete with Iran’s success in the country.

(...) The Syrian Democratic Forces were mostly neutral in the battle between pro- and anti-Syrian government forces, but tensions have risen between the U.S. and pro-Syrian government forces that now share extensive front lines since ISIS’s collapse on multiple fronts. Recent clashes between the Syrian army and the Syrian Democratic Forces were followed by the U.S.’s unprecedented decision to shoot down a Syrian military jet it claimed was operating too close to positions held by the Syrian Democratic Forces. Siding with the U.S,, however, will turn out to be a grave mistake for the Kurds, according to Ford. He said U.S. support for Kurds would disappear, as it did in post-invasion Iraq, after ISIS was defeated in Raqqa and in other areas.

“[The U.S.] will not defend the Kurds against Assad’s forces,” the former envoy said. “What we’re doing with the Kurds is not only politically stupid, but immoral.”

“Syrian Kurds are making their biggest mistake in trusting the Americans,” he added.

De fait, on peut imaginer que ce seront les Kurdes qui finiront par payer la note en #syrie, même si c’est immoral comme le dit un ex-ambassadeur qui s’y connaît dans ce domaine...

U.S. military aid is fueling big ambitions for Syria’s leftist Kurdish militia
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-military-aid-is-fueling-big-ambitions-for-syrias-leftist-kurdish-militia/2017/01/07/6e457866-c79f-11e6-acda-59924caa2450_story.html

Toujours aussi fantastiques les #MSM étasuniens : pour calmer les craintes et des Turcs et des Arabes quant aux gains territoriaux des Kurdes (qui vont au-delà des zones traditionnellement kurdes), les Étasuniens arment des forces comprenant des Arabes dit l’article, mais en même temps les Etasuniens reconnaissent que lesdites forces sont largement dominées par les Kurdes....

https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_480w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/01/06/Foreign/Graphics/KURDISHYPG-syria-control-map-0106.jpg?uuid=k5h5GtQkEeaWUVSgFUz1sw

To assuage Turkish concerns and avert tensions between Arabs and Kurds, the U.S. military is channeling weapons and ammunition to an umbrella organization called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which includes Arab fighters as well as the Kurds. The goal, the U.S. military says, is to build an Arab force capable of taking and holding Arab cities such as Raqqa, thereby diluting the influence of the Kurdish fighters.

[...]

U.S. officials acknowledge, however, that the Kurds constitute more than three-quarters of the SDF coalition and are leading the fight on the front lines, making them the biggest beneficiary of U.S. military assistance.

Une entente dans la course vers Raqqa ?
Selon Interfax cité par Reuters les Russes, par la voix de Lavrov, se déclarent prêts à coopérer avec la coalition dirigée par les Etats-Unis pour la prise de Raqqa. Lavrov, l’air de rien, laisse entendre qu’une certaine division du travail aurait même été proposée à l’intiative des Américains. Et l’air de rien, nouveau petit message en direction d’Ankara et de Ryadh après l’article de Goldberg #Obama_doctrine
►http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-raqqa-idUSKCN0WG0IC

Russia ready to cooperate with U.S.-led coalition in fight for Syria’s Raqqa: Interfax
Russia is ready to coordinate its actions with the U.S.-led coalition in Syria to push the Islamic State group out of Raqqa, Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
“We are ready to coordinate our actions with the Americans, because Raqqa is in the eastern part of Syria, and the American coalition is mainly ... acting there,” Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying in an interview with the Ren-TV television channel.
“Perhaps, this is no secret, if I say that at some stage the
Americans suggested performing a ’division of labor’: the Russian Air Forces should concentrate on the liberation of Palmyra, and the American coalition with Russian support will focus on the liberation of Raqqa,” the minister added.

#course_vers_Raqqa #Syrie #Daech #Russie

Russia ready to cooperate with US-led coalition in fight for Syria’s Raqqa: Interfax | Reuters

►http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-raqqa-idUSKCN0WG0IC

▻http://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20160314&t=2&i=1124672433&w=&fh=545px&fw=&ll=&pl=&sq=&r=LYN

Russia is ready to coordinate its actions with the U.S.-led coalition in Syria to push the Islamic State group out of Raqqa, Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.

#syrie #russie #états-unis #daesh