Damascus, Syria. The US may be committing war crimes in northern Syria as incendiary airstrikes were put to devastating effect over Raqqa on Thursday evening, a city which houses over 200,000 residents. Of course it is not the first time the United States has broken the rules of war and participated in war crimes upon Syria and it’s people.
With the US now engaged in military conflict with, and targeting Syrian army forces, what the Trump administration has (un)wittingly done is provide support to Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra and other terrorist forces, all of which have been engaging with the Assad regime in a fight in which the Syrian president has gradually seen the tide of war turn in his favor. At least until Trump started the “de-conflicted safe space” nonsense.
However, Syria, nor Russia do not recognize those deconfliction zones established without Syrian government approval, especially those unilaterally set up within Syria by the U.S. Essentially, the U.S. is now setting up deconfliction zones in order to criminalize the presence of Syrian forces in order to protect the independent state it seeks create. Now, a military alliance fighting in support of Assad said it will target U.S. forces warning that its “self-restraint” regarding U.S. airstrikes on government forces will end if Washington crosses “red lines.”
Footage published by Amaq Agency moments ago showed what appeared to be either cluster bombs or white phosphorus falling all over Raqqa, both of which are internationally banned if used on residential areas:
US warplanes have been increasingly aggressive in their campaign to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq since Trump took office earlier this year, suggesting Washington to have relaxed the rules of engagement in seemingly total disregard for collateral damage.
The US has a pattern of phosphours use. On November 15, 2005, U.S. Department of Defense spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable confirmed to the BBC that white phosphorus had been used as an incendiary anti-personnel weapon in Fallujah.
Venable stated “When you have enemy forces that are in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on and you wish to get them out of those positions, one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position because the combined effects of the fire and smoke – and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground – will drive them out of the holes so that you can kill them with high explosives.”