S/2017/655 - Letter from Syria reporting daily air raids by the "international coalition" in several Syrian governorates.

United Nations
Security Council

S/2017/655

Distr.: General
3 August 2017
English
Original: Arabic

Identical letters dated 30 July 2017 from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

On instructions from my Government, I should like to convey to you the following information:

The so-called international coalition led by the United States of America has continued to massacre innocent Syrian civilians by carrying out daily air raids, particularly on the governorates of Raqqah, Hasakah, Aleppo and Dayr al-Zawr. Those raids have been systematic and continuous, and have followed the same pattern ever since the so-called coalition intervened illegally on 23 September 2014 to support the armed terrorist groups in the Syrian Arab Republic.

The so-called international coalition has massacred civilians in the villages, towns and cities of Kashkash Jabur and Kashkash Ziyanat in Hasakah governorate and Kashkashiyah, Mayadin, Tayyibah and Albu Kamal in Dayr al-Zawr governorate on 3, 12, 18, 24, 27, 29 and 30 July 2017. American warplanes and aircraft of the purported coalition rained missiles and bombs on residential areas and civilian homes at those locations, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians, most of whom were women, children and the elderly.

The aircraft of the American so-called coalition also committed three massacres of Syrian civilians, on 27, 28 and 29 June 2017 respectively, in the town of Sur, the village of Dablan and the city of Mayadin, in Dayr al -Zawr governorate, killing more than 90 civilians, most of them women, children and elderly persons. In those attacks, the so-called coalition used internationally prohibited white phosphorus bombs. On 9 June 2017, the coalition also carried out attacks on civilian homes in the Mashlab, Sina'ah and Sabahi neighbourhoods in Raqqah governorate, killing 18 civilians, most of them women, children and elderly persons.

The so-called international coalition claims to combat terrorism in order to justify its acts of aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic, but nobody will be fooled. Terrorism has proliferated and festered only because the Governments that are members of the so-called coalition have provided multifarious and unlimited support for terrorist organizations, particularly Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Nusrah Front and other associated individuals and entities. Attacks by the so-called coalition have helped to spread "creative" chaos and to kill, destroy and lay waste. The coalition's aims are therefore congruent with those of the terrorist organizations, namely to undermine security and stability, destroy the resources of the Syrian Arab Republic and prolong the crisis in order to benefit Israel and its schemes. It is now blatantly obvious that certain States of the coalition, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom, are connected with terrorist organizations. The latter have taken advantage of coalition air cover in their movements. Indeed, many coalition operations have targeted the forces of the Syrian Arab Republic and Syrian infrastructure.

The so-called international coalition has committed a series of crimes against the Syrian people, and it has systematically violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic. Those actions must come to an immediate end. Despite the pattern of criminal conduct that we have come to expect from the coalition, the United Nations and its senior envoys have remained silent, as have a number of Member States that claim to be concerned for the protection of civilians in Syria and elsewhere. That situation is unacceptable from a moral and humanitarian standpoint, as it encourages the coalition to persist with its crimes against the Syrian people.

The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic condemns in the strongest possible terms the so-called international coalition's crimes against civilians and its attacks on the infrastructure, the public and private property and the economic, service-related, petroleum and gas facilities of the Syrian Arab Republic. Those actions have spilled the blood of numerous Syrian children and women and caused horrific damage and appalling material losses. This illegal coalition was established without the permission of the Syrian Government and outside the context of the United Nations, and it must be dissolved.

The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic calls on the Security Council to fulfil its responsibility to maintain international peace and security by putting an end to the coalition's crimes against the Syrian people and by prevailing on all States to comply with the counter-terrorism resolutions of the Security Council, particularly resolution 2253 (2015).

I should be grateful if the present letter could be circulated as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Bashar Ja'afari
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

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03Aug17

Letter from Syria reporting daily air raids by the "international coalition" in several Syrian governorates