Damascus has strongly denounced as a “war crime” a deadly strike carried out by the US-led military coalition against pro-government forces in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province, saying US presence in the country is “illegitimate.”
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned the strike in two separate letters sent to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the UN Security Council on Thursday, saying the air raid was “a crime against humanity.”
It further lambasted Washington for using “the excuse of fighting terrorism to set up illegitimate bases on Syrian territory.”
The US military said late Wednesday that it had killed at least 100 pro-government fighters in Syria to allegedly fend off an attack on the so-called US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Deir Ezzor province.
“We demand that the international community … condemn this massacre and hold the [US-led] coalition responsible for it,” added the ministry in the letters, as cited by Syria’s official news agency, SANA.
It also demanded, once again, that “this illegitimate coalition” be dissolved.
“This aggression reveals once again, without any doubt, the real function of this alliance and the role played by Washington in supporting the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group, as it did in the past,” the ministry further said.
