UN war crimes investigators have stated that there has been a “staggering loss of civilian life” caused by the US-backed campaign to reclaim Raqqa.
The independent commission of inquiry tasked with investigating violations of international law, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria said the intensification of airstrikes by the US-led coalition had led to the deaths of at least 300 civilians in the city.
The battle for the city has also led to 160,000 civilians fleeing their homes.
The Raqqa operation began last week with a ground assault by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella group comprising Kurdish and Arab militiamen armed by the US and supported by coalition airstrikes.
The international coalition supposedly fighting Daesh dropped illegal white phosphorus bombs on the civilian areas of Raqqa in Syria. The operation “Operation Euphrates Wrath” spearheaded by US-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and their military wing the YPG.
It is well documented that white phosphorous has been used in densely populated areas. It is banned under so called international law, though military forces are allowed to use it to create smoke screens.
Human Rights Watch said U.S.-led forces in Mosul and Raqqa are using U.S.-made M825-series 155mm artillery projectiles containing 116 felt wedges impregnated with white phosphorus, which ignites and continues to burn when exposed to the air. This is the only type of 155mm white phosphorus projectile in U.S. stocks that can be air-burst.
Similar to napalm, white phosphorus causes agonising and potentially deadly chemical burns which have been known to melt skin off the bone.
Indeed the civilians of Raqqa have paid a severe and high price from the tyranny of Bashar al Assad and the western ambitions for the region. There has been a dramatic increase in reported civilian deaths resulting from U.S. and coalition airstrikes in both Syria and Iraq since the beginning of the year. However the fatalities in Syria run into the hundreds and thousands since the beginning of fighting in 2011. Not a month has gone by without another city, town or village being bombarded with hellish weapons and bombs. Bombs that are the most devastating ever to be developed in human history.
It is America and other western nations that are the supply sources for these weapons, including white phosphorus. Nobody is immune or protected from this kind of destructive armoury. Every person, man, woman and child is witness to it’s murderous attributes.
The rulers in the Muslim rulers are silent and will continue to be so. There is no reliance on them and they have proven to Muslim around the world that they are impotent and follow instructions from western nations not to offer protection or security. Allah and His Messenger (saw) are irrelevant – even in the month of Ramadhan.
The Khilafah is indeed a shield which the Ummah has needed since it’s destruction in 1924. Without the Khilafah to protect and shield, there will be another Raqqa and Aleppo every month and every year in the Muslim world.
Every Muslim who has a sound mind, studies Islamic disciplines and has political awareness, should come to the conclusion that there is only one solution to Raqqa- the reestablishment of the Khilafah Rashidah.
إنما الإمام جنة يقاتل من ورائه ويتقى به
“Only the Imam is a shield, behind whom you fight and you protect yourself with” [Muslim]
