On instructions from my Government, and further to our numerous letters informing you of the barbarous crimes committed by the “international coalition” led by the United States of America, and that coalition’s systematic attacks against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and against innocent Syrian civilians, I should like to draw to your attention the following:

Warplanes of the “international coalition” have added a new bloody massacre to their long record of massacres, war crimes and crimes against humanity. On 23 October 2017, they launched missiles at the crowded residential neighbourhood of Qusur in the city of Dayr al-Zawr, killing 14 civilians and injuring over 40 others, most of them women and children.

That attack by the international coalition against the residential Qusur neighbourhood, which was empty of any Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists after having recently been liberated by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies, comes in continuation of that coalition’s suspicious and destructive activities, and its feverish effort to undermine victories scored by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies against the ISIL terrorist organization, especially in Dayr al-Zawr governorate. That has been confirmed by actual events and numerous reports and aerial photographs that show that ISIL terrorists are launching attacks against the Syrian Arab Army and its allies from areas under the control of the international coalition and its proxy terrorist militias on the ground.

In that same connection, the spectacle of the liberation of the city of Raqqah comes after that criminal coalition’s warplanes perpetrated massacres in that city that took the lives of thousands of its people and wiped that city off the face of the earth. While that was going on, the coalition and its allied militias were guaranteeing the safe exit from Raqqah and Dayr al-Zawr of members of the ISIL terrorist organization, most of whom were foreign terrorist fighters, so they could be redirected to attack forces of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies in Dayr al-Zawr governorate.

The coalition’s rush to announce reconstruction plans for the city of Raqqah will not be able to erase the traces of this heinous crime. Nor will it succeed in its attempt, along with its proxies, to create a new status quo in flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic.

The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic expresses its strong condemnation of the so-called international coalition’s attacks, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Syrian civilians, including the murder of civilian women and children in Dayr al-Zawr. The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic also protests the failure by certain member States of that coalition to dissociate themselves from the crimes being committed by that coalition in their names. Syria finds it preposterous that certain States and other parties that champion the “rule of law”, human rights and international humanitarian law should be issuing celebratory communiqués while closing their eyes and ears to the murders of thousands of civilian inhabitants of Raqqah and the complete destruction of that city. Syria considers such States to be accomplices in the shedding of Syrian blood and the destruction of Syrian cities and infrastructure. Such ridiculous communiqués are a blatant illustration of the double standard under which those States are labouring.

The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic renews its call on the Security Council to fulfil its primary responsibility of maintaining international peace and security, and to take immediate action to put a stop to the barbaric crimes being committed by this illegitimate coalition.

I should be grateful if these identical letters could be issued as a document of the Security Council.

Source: UN S/2017/893