Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism – US-led coalition’s anti-Daesh operation in Raqqa killed from 744 to 1,600 civilians, according to counts by the coalition, Amnesty International or the specialised site Airwars, the RAND report said.
“The level of structural damage and the lack of US support for Raqqa’s reconstruction led many Raqqa residents to resent the method of their city’s liberation,” report says. (AP Archive)
The US military could have done more to limit civilian casualties and damage during the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa that marked Daesh’s fall in 2017, according to a report commissioned by the Pentagon.
At the end of the nearly five-month battle to free the city from IS, “60 to 80 percent” of it was “uninhabitable” and resentment of the population was directed at the liberators, said a report by the research center RAND Corporation.
“Raqqa endured the most structural damage by density of any city in Syria,” said the report released Thursday.
“The level of structural damage and the lack of US support for Raqqa’s reconstruction led many Raqqa residents to resent the method of their city’s liberation,” it added.
So-called “targeted” air strikes and artillery fire by coalition forces on Raqqa caused numerous civilian casualties between June 6 and October 30, 2017: from 744 to 1,600 dead, according to counts by the coalition, Amnesty International or the specialised site Airwars, the RAND report said.
According to UN figures cited by RAND, 11,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged between February and October 2017, including eight hospitals, 29 mosques, more than 40 schools, five universities and the city’s irrigation system.
