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Yesterday
the Guardian reported Russia's airstrikes on Syria appear futilewith little progress on ground, and then today we have an Amnesty
report saying the Russians are hitting civilians on the ground inlarge number.
Someone
is not telling the truth and I'm sure I know who.
Just
have a look at reports from on the ground and you will see that there
are great advances in Syria by the Syrian Arab Army and Hezbollah,
all with support from Russia's airstrikes.
As
for the second allegation it is inevitable that there will be
casualties but read and watch below to see the degree of
falsification on. The western allies are either hitting sand or can
hardly fail to hit hospitals or other civilian infrastructure when
they are not hitting Syrian army positions "by mistake"
UN can’t confirm Amnesty’s ‘remote investigation’ of Russia’s strikes in Syria
RT,
24
December, 2015
The
UN “cannot independently confirm” information presented in
Amnesty International’s report on alleged civilian casualties of
Russian airstrikes in Syria. The Russian defense ministry dismissed
the paper’s findings as “cliches” lacking hard evidence
The
human rights watchdog’s latest report exposing “Russia’s
shameful failure to acknowledge civilian killings” is
focused on six attacks in Homs, Idlib and Aleppo provinces, which the
NGO pinned on “suspected
Russian airstrikes.” Amnesty
researched the attacks “remotely”,
going as far as to accuse Russia of war crimes by causing“massive
destruction” of
residential areas through the alleged use of internationally
prohibited cluster munitions.
information presented in the Amnesty International report was alarming, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, noting, however, that the UN cannot verify the NGO’s sources and findings.
“The Secretary General notes with concern Amnesty International report on alleged violations of international humanitarian law resulting of the Russian airstrikes in Syria. The UN cannot independently confirm the cases presented in the report,”Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq said.
Based
on witness accounts gathered via phone interviews, information from
local human rights defenders and after reviewing videos and pictures
posted online, Amnesty came to the conclusion that at least 200
civilians had been killed in at least 25 Russian airstrikes since the
air campaign began.
The
Russian defense ministry dismissed the report for its failure to
provide any concrete evidence or new factual information whatsoever,
besides groundless assumptions and accusations.
“Once
again, nothing concrete or new was published, only the same cliches
and fakes that we have already debunked repeatedly,” Russian
defense ministry spokesman, General-Major Igor Konashenkov, said
after reviewing the report.
Минобороны России
#SYRIA Temptations to accuse the Russian air group of mass killing of civilians and use of prohibited munitions are continued
“The
report constantly uses expressions such as ‘supposedly Russian
strikes,’ ‘possible violations of international law’ – a lot
of assumptions without any evidence,” he
noted.
Furthermore
Moscow doubts the authenticity of the aerial photos used by Amnesty
International and called upon the NGO to at least name the sources of
the information it had used in the report.
#FAKEAI Amnesty International, reveal who and when provided you with this so-called data or it will be done by the Rus MoD itself
“The
barrage of lies was aimed at accusing Russian forces of bombing
Syrian hospitals. We immediately rejected these claims, presenting
comprehensive photographic and video evidence to the public. A
characteristic feature of all these allegations is the lack of
concrete evidence and references to anonymous witnesses,” Konashenkov
told reporters.
“As
for cluster munitions allegations. Russian aviation are not using
them,” the
general-major added. He reminded that dozens of international
journalists who visited Russia’s Kheimim base in Latakia filmed the
jets preparing for sorties but“have
never presented footage or asked questions about them because there
are no such weapons at our base.”
Rus MoD comments on Amnesty Int brief and summes up operation results in #Syria, Dec 18-23 http://on.fb.me/1OLuJXN
The
general in turn accused the NGO of not covering jihadist atrocities
in Iraq and Syria or illegal activities of the Saudi-led coalition in
Yemen. Konashenkov told reporters that Amnesty also failed to
investigate the use of cluster munitions by Kiev’s troops in
eastern Ukraine.
#SYRIA Representatives of respectful mass media, do not put at risk your reputation by publishing fakes provided by anonymous sources
“We
have a question for Amnesty International: why did this organization
keep silent and turn a blind eye to material, undeniable, real
evidence of the use of cluster munitions by the Ukrainian Armed
Forces against cities in eastern Ukraine?”
The
general-major concluded that such fake reports are manufactured to
distract the international community from the four-year civil war in
Syria and to divert public attention from real concerns on the
ground.
There
are indeed some “serious
defects” in
the credibility of Amnesty’s report, security analyst and former
counter-terrorism intelligence officer Charles Shoebridge told RT,
suggesting that was rather an emotional call to avoid civilian
casualties, than an independent and impartial investigation.
“Of
course nobody would say that it is not difficult in Syria’s
circumstances to carry out such an [impartial] investigation,
particularly since these areas, the targets of Russia’s attacks are
of course under the control of rebel and in many cases extremist
Islamist groups, which of course very much restricts what local
members of the public are allowed to say,”Shoebridge
explained.
Shoebridge
insists that “some degree of civilian casualties” is almost
inevitable from any aerial campaign even with the most precise
weapons, but says that even people witnessing the attacks on the
ground can’t point to the perpetrator with any degree of certainty.
“People
on the ground, particularly doctors that have been interviewed or
working inside hospitals dealing with injuries they of course can say
these are blast injuries, shrapnel injuries, but they themselves
cannot say with any certainty in most respects… It is certainly the
case that I think people on the ground will have great difficulty to
differentiate in between not only blast that was caused by perhaps
the artillery or rocket, or even explosions from car bombs in some
cases, but particularly who it is that is dropping bombs on
them,” Shoebridge
said.
Besides the questionable effectiveness of the “remote investigation technique”, Amnesty’s own credibility and impartiality should be looked at, Shoebridge dded.
“It
is important to look at the nature of Amnesty itself in terms of the
credibility of its reporting. For a large part of this Syria conflict
Amnesty, particularly here in its London office, has made no secret
of its support for large part of Syria’s rebellion, even at some
point a couple of years ago calling – which many people would find
bizarre for human rights group – for the arming of Syria’s
rebels, even though at the time Syrian rebels were known to be
carrying out human rights abuses themselves of very serious nature.”
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