US Air Strike Hits Syrian Bakery, Kills 15 Civilians

US Strike Targeted ISIS-Held City, But Hit Only Civilians

An early dawn US air raid against the Syrian city of Shadadi ended with airstrikes hitting the city’s bakery, and killing 15 civilians who were lining up outside to buy bread just before the bakery opened, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Shadadi is considered a strategically important city for ISIS, as it is along the Iraq-Syria border and is used as a logistics hub for ISIS forces operating between the two fronts. There were reportedly strikes around the outskirts of Shadadi, but the only casualties reported were the civilians at the bakery.

It was unclear why the bakery was attacked, and the US isn’t commenting yet, though historically when the US attacks ISIS-held towns they focus on places with a lot of people, assuming they’re “command” structures. In this case, it was a purely civilian target.

This is the latest in a growing number of civilian deaths in attacks on ISIS-held towns, as the US-led coalition as well as the Russian military both pick up their air war against northern Syria. Though the US regularly faults Russia over the civilians killed in their strikes, they rarely touch on the substantial civilian toll of their own strikes.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.