War of annihilation
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“WAR OF ANNIHILATION” DEVASTATING TOLL ON CIVILIANS, RAQQA – SYRIA
Amnesty International 15 hibernation, moving around front line areas to look for food/water, and sometimes refusing to leave for fear of losing property and/or for fear of danger in flight. In each of the four cases detailed in this report, Coalition forces launched air strikes on buildings full of civilians using precision munitions with a wide-area effect, which could be expected to destroy them entirely. In each of the cases, the civilians killed and injured in the attacks, many of whom were women and children, had been staying in the buildings for long periods prior to the strikes. Coalition forces would have been aware of their presence had they conducted rigorous surveillance prior to the strikes. Amnesty International did not discover information indicating that IS fighters were present in the buildings at the time they were hit. All but one of the targeted buildings were single-storey houses surrounded by taller buildings, offering neither strategic vantage points for IS snipers, nor particular protection for IS fighters, compared to taller, sturdier buildings in the areas. Although they could not definitively rule it out, survivors of these strikes were not aware of IS fighters in the vicinity of the houses before they were struck. Even had IS fighters been present, this would neither explain nor justify the targeting of these civilian building with munitions expected to destroy them entirely. The Coalition’s failure to consider adequately the presence of civilians in the city when selecting targets became evident at an early stage of the operation. On 2 July 2017, Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend, the US commander of the Coalition force leading the operation, stated: “… we shoot every boat we find. If you want to get out of Raqqa right now, you’ve got to build a poncho raft,” 13 an erroneous assumption that every boat carried IS fighters and weapons, whereas at that time civilians trying to escape the city had few options but to cross the river by boat (the bridges having by then been destroyed by Coalition strikes). 14
Coalition forces also made extensive use of munitions which have a wide-area effect or which cannot be precisely aimed at specific targets located in populated civilian areas. This is notably the case for artillery rounds, which have a margin of error of up to 50m, even when fitted with precision guidance systems. 15 In fact, most of the artillery shells used by Coalition forces in Raqqa were unguided, with a much wider margin of error of over 100m. In residential areas where buildings are no more than few metres apart, such inaccuracies are virtually certain to cost civilian lives. By their own admission, US forces fired tens of thousands of artillery rounds into the city. 16 Marines brag about burning out their howitzer barrels, having fired so many rounds in such a short period of time. 17 Though this particular report focuses on civilian victims of air strikes, Amnesty International previously documented civilian casualties of Coalition artillery strikes in Raqqa in an earlier report, 18 as well as their use of indiscriminate strikes, notably with white phosphorous in June 2017. 19
13 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/02/world/middleeast/us-backed-forces-close-to-trapping-isis-holdouts-in-raqqa.html 14 See: Amnesty International, “I won’t forget this carnage”: Civilians trapped in the fight for Raqqa – Syria (Index: MDE 24/6945/2017) and available at https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE2469452017ENGLISH.PDF 15 For example, M1156 guiding kits fitted to 155mm artillery rounds, reduce the Circular Error Probable (CEP) to 30-50m, irrespective of the range. However, most of the 155mm artillery rounds used in Raqqa were unguided, with a CEP of as much as 200-300m, when fired from their maximum range. See “How to read the Army’s budget request for more precision ordnance”, in The New York Times Magazine, 1 May 2018, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/magazine/army-artillery-budget-howitzer.html and “XM1156 precision guidance kit heads to Afghanistan” in DefenseMediaNetwork, 26 April 2013, available at https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/xm1156-155mm-precision-guidance-kit-heads-to-afghanistan/ Also see weapons’ section on page 51. 16 “Marine artillery barrage of Raqqa was so intense two howitzers burned out”, Marine Times, 2 November 2017, available at https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/flashpoints/2017/11/02/marine-artillery-barrage-of-raqqa-was-so-intense-two-howitzers-burned-out/ 17 Ibid 18 Amnesty International, “I won’t forget this carnage”: Civilians trapped in the fight for Raqqa – Syria (Index: MDE 24/6945/2017) and available at https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE2469452017ENGLISH.PDF 19 Amnesty International, “Syria: Expert analysis shows US-led coalition use of white phosphorus may amount to war crime”, 16 June 2017, available at https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/06/syria-expert-analysis-shows-usled-coalition-use-of-white-phosphorus-may- amount-to-war-crime/
“WAR OF ANNIHILATION” DEVASTATING TOLL ON CIVILIANS, RAQQA – SYRIA
Amnesty International 16 ASWAD FAMILY NINE CIVILIANS KILLED – EIGHT IN AN AIR STRIKE AND ONE KILLED BY A MINE/IED WHILE TRYING YO REACH SURVIVORS “We kept thinking ‘In a couple of days it’ll all be over; the SDF will come for us today or tomorrow’.” 20
Jamal Othman Aswad was one of four brothers from the low-income district west of the Jezra intersection on the western outskirts of Raqqa city. By the time the Coalition began its campaign to wrest Raqqa from the IS, he was 41 years old and had become a successful trader. In 1990, he and his brothers – Ammar, Mohammed and Khaled (of whom only the latter two survived) – had established a business selling food and household goods. They ran a shop on the busy main road west of the Jezra intersection selling everything from infant milk powder to flat-screen TVs. The brothers dreamt of constructing their own building and by 2010 – after working together for 20 years – they were able to begin work on a plot opposite the old family home. Construction took a year and cost the brothers’ life savings of some USD60,000. Initially they planned to sell some of the 12 apartments and invest profits in the business but when the crisis and subsequent conflict in Syria began, business slowed and they struggled to finish the interior work. They sold only one of the apartments, on the fourth floor, to a family who fitted it out but then moved away from the city. Unable to complete the internal work on the building, Jamal, Mohammed and Khaled continued to live in rented accommodation elsewhere in the city with their wives and children. The youngest brother, Ammar, lived with their mother in the old family home across the street from the unfinished building. The brothers used the ground floor of the building and the cellar as a warehouse for their goods. With four storeys, the block was one of very few tall buildings in a predominantly one- and two-storey neighbourhood. It also had a cellar; something the older, traditional one-storey houses (usually referred to locally as “Arabic houses”) lacked. Shortly after Coalition forces and the local SDF launched the military operation to oust IS from Raqqa on 6 June 2017, the area became a battleground. The Aswad’s cellar became a shelter for the family and some of their neighbours. WHITE PHOSPHOROUS SHELLING At the beginning of the military operation, before the shelling started, Coalition airplanes dropped leaflets on the Jezra intersection area warning residents to distance themselves from IS fighters and leave the city, 21 a
difficult and risky endeavor given IS’s proven track record of targeting civilians who attempted to leave cities under its control. 22 On 8 June 2017 Coalition forces fired white phosphorus artillery projectiles above Jezra, seemingly to create a smokescreen through which SDF ground troops could move into the area. 23 Amnesty International verified videos of the event which were published online and showed burning elements coming into contact with civilian houses. 24 White phosphorous-impregnated fragments rained down on the area around the Aswad’s building and shop. Mohammed, one of the Aswad brothers who survived the attack, told Amnesty International: We had been in the basement from 8 June, after the first attack in the area – a white phosphorous bombardment which set my neighbour’s food warehouse on fire, as well as another neighbour’s
20 Interview with Mohammed Aswad, Raqqa, 8 February 2018. 21 See, for example, https://www.facebook.com/Raqqa.Sl/photos/a.780113668666553.1073741828.780110825333504/1565169326827646/?type=3&theater and https://isis.liveuamap.com/en/2017/8-june-leaflets-dropped-by-international-coalition-onto-raqqa 22 See, for example, Amnesty International, At any cost: The civilian catastrophe in West Mosul – Iraq (Index: MDE 14/6610/2017), available at https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/07/at-any-cost-civilian-catastrophe-in-west-mosul-iraq/ 23 The artillery were most likely US-made 155mm M825A1s – Amnesty International Press Release, 16 June 2017, available at https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/06/syria-expert-analysis-shows-usled-coalition-use-of-white-phosphorus-may-amount-to-war- crime/
24 Ibid.
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