ISIS Syria Airstrike Bombing Has Killed 550 People, Civilians Included
A total of 553 individuals have died a month after the United States and its allies started dropping bombs on Syria to degrade and destroy the blood-hungry ISIS. Majority of the death toll, at 521, were jihadi fighters, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The rest were civilians.
Among the dead civilians were six children and five women, the Observatory said. The figures were gathered from a wide network of sources inside Syria. An unidentified military spokesman quoted by the AFP, however, said they have yet to verify the authenticity of the report.
Maj. Curtis Kellogg, US Central Command spokesman, told Business Insider that reports of casualties wrought by the ongoing massive airstrikes are evaluated "on an ongoing basis." But he admitted the military has yet to come up with a formal list detailing such civilian deaths.
The airstrikes on Syria have killed a "vast majority" of jihadists but are foreign fighters who had travelled to the country to join the radical extremist group. Kellogg said that the U.S. and the entire coalition do meticulous planning and execution to avoid incurring civilian casualties and fatalities. "We are aware of claims of suspected civilian casualties related to U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq and we continue to evaluate them. To date, we have not been able to verify any of them. We determine the credibility of each allegation based on information available, including information provided by third parties, and information such as the proximity of the location to an airstrike, and any corroborating evidence presented," Kellogg told Business Insider, noting there are risks inherent in such strikes.
Since September, airstrikes on Syria have been deployed to the provinces of Aleppo, Deir al-Zor, Idlib, Raqqa and al-Hassakah, according to the Britain-based Observatory. Data from the United Nations said Syria's three-year civil war has killed almost 200,000 people.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most of the dead jihadi fighters were killed in or near Kobani. The area's been a massive target for both the jihadi offensive and the U.S.-lead coalition support since mid-September. Over 200,000 people have fled into neighbouring Turkey because of the battle.