206 Civilians Killed by US Airstrikes in Eastern Syria in November

At least 77 children slain in US attacks on towns

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has issued a new report over the weekend summarizing the massive civilian death toll of US-led airstrikes against a handful of eastern towns in Syria. At least 206 civilians were killed in November in those strikes.

The strikes center on three towns and some adjoining villages under ISIS control along the Iraq border. Kurdish YPG forces are attacking the towns, and the US is trying to provide air support, which mostly means bombing populated areas in the towns themselves.

The observatory’s previous reports have indicated that a lot of the civilians killed were suspected of being family members of ISIS fighters. At least 77 children and 57 women are among the slain civilians.

While the US clearly hasn’t had a problem with endangering civilians in this way, they’ve done little to practically support the Kurdish offensives by doing so. After over a month of such strikes, there are a lot of people dead, but ISIS still controls the towns, and has retaken which villages were lost.

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.