The United States-led “international coalition” continues to perpetrate massacres against Syrian civilians, adding to its countless crimes. On Tuesday, 20 February 2018, this “coalition” once again massacred Syrian civilians when its warplanes bombed residential neighbourhoods in the rural village of Bahra in eastern Dayr al-Zawr governorate. The bombardment led to the deaths of 16 civilians, 9 of them women, and the destruction of civilian homes and property and village infrastructure.

In furtherance of the mission for which it was founded, namely, undermining the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, the “international coalition”, which has destroyed the city of Raqqah, sent its inhabitants fleeing and killed thousands of its innocent civilian residents, continues to support and protect the remnants of the terrorist organization Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). As part of this coalition, American forces rescued the terrorist remnants of ISIL and reconstituted them as separatist proxy militias of the United States in Hasakah, Raqqah and Dayr al-Zawr governorates. American forces have also thrown every possible obstacle in the path of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies, impeding their war on the terrorist ISIL organization. An example of this occurred on 8 February 2018, when American aircraft targeted popular forces that were clashing with terrorist ISIL fighters, killing dozens of those forces. This certainly will not be the last such incident.

The Syrian Arab Republic stresses that the Security Council must take action to stop these coalition crimes against the Syrian people, end the illegal presence of American forces in Syrian territory and prevent the United States from carrying out its underhanded schemes to partition the Syrian Arab Republic and plunder its resources.

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

Bashar Ja’afari