Press Release
Coalition Forces Admission of their Mistake; Is it a Virtue or a Crime?!
(Translated)

French warplanes affiliated to the coalition forces committed on Tuesday, July 19, 2016 in the Greater Toukhan village north of Manbij city in Syria, an appalling massacre resulting in the death of more than 200 civilians, mostly children, women and elderly, including entire families, and wounding dozens others. French aggression came just one day after the brutal aggression carried out by US warplanes on Monday, July 18, 2016, committing a similar bloody massacre by targeting and violently bombing the city of Manbij, killing more than 20 civilians and injuring dozens with varying degrees of severity, with the majority of the victims being innocent women and children.

On Saturday, July 23, 2016, the media also reported that Russian and Syrian government airstrikes had left 70 people dead, including children, in raids on several areas in Syria, especially Aleppo and quarters in the cities and towns of Doma, Shifonia, Al-Rayhan, Kafr Batna and Sakba in Eastern Ghouta. All of the deadly airstrikes resulted in casualties and widespread destruction of property and buildings that criminally complicated the rescue and recovery operations to retrieve the injured and dead bodies from the rubble.

The international coalition announced on June 8, 2016 that US-backed Syrian forces would in coming days be able to enter the Syrian city of Manbij near the Turkish border, due to the strategic importance of Manbij, being located on the main supply line for the stronghold of ISIS in Raqqa with the Syrian-Turkish border.

Approximately 50 days have passed while the city of Manbij, inhabited by almost two hundred thousand people, witness the brutal military campaign waged by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who are supported by the international coalition aircrafts. The number of civilians killed in the city since the start of this campaign - whether by the coalition’s raids or the SDF’s shelling or even by landmines - has exceeded 800 martyrs. Consequently, due to the heavy shelling and fighting, people were unable to retrieve many of their victims’ corpsesforced furthermore to bury their dead in the gardens!

The International Coalition Forces has admitted, on Friday July 22, to the massacre that killed more than 50 civilians in Syria, by their air strike on the Syrian Manbij city three days ago. So, will this admission end the agony of the bereaved and heal the wounds of the injured?! And who can say that every admission of a mistake is a virtue?! It is a crime, and a grave crime!! Adding more and more to the crimes committed for years by these forces against our people in Syria, during which they afflicted upon them various forms of suffering and oppression, besieged them and displaced them, and those whose destiny to survive had starved to death. And those who fled, the waves tossed them, either having drowned or became residents of camps unfit for human habitation because of the lack of the most basic necessities for human life.

Is it to this degree that the lives of Muslims have become insignificant to the world, that a killer would kill Muslims publically, and then supervise the investigation to then convict himself and then be asked to confess, condemn and denounce!! Where are the Muslim rulers while this is happening to our children, women and elderly?  The military bases are still open to the coalition aircrafts to roam with impunity and without liabilty?! Where is the opposition who are residing in hotels, from the massacres that take place, are they still optimistic about the negotiations chaired by the leading terrorist state in the world (America)!!

O you who demanded the need for the major powers’ intervention in-order to resolve the crisis in Syria, has not the truth been revealed before you and emerged to you who is the victim and who is the executioner?!! Are you still waiting for salvation from colonial powers that have no other aim except attaining their own interests, and the eliminating of Islam and Muslims is their top priority.

The conscious and the sincere to their Ummah's issues do not expect goodness and salvation except from their Divine Law (Shariah) and their Islam favored to them by their Almighty Creator, Who the shedding of a drop of a Muslim’s blood unjustly is more precious to Him than the elimination of the whole world.

Women’s Section
in the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir