LONDON Evidence is mounting of a war crime perpetrated by joint Russian-Syrian military forces when a school in a rebel-held village of Idlib Province was bombedon Oct. 26, leaving dozens of pupils and teachers dead.The bombing may be the deadliest school bombing since the start of Syrias civil war in 2011. Earlier this month, a Human Rights Watch report,based on interviews and photographs, placed Russian and Syrian bombers above the site in the village of Haas that day. Now, new satellite imagery provides additional verification that they were behind the bloodshed. Human Rights Watch reports that the imagery reveals damage to two sites within the school complex, to the schools courtyard walls and to several smaller buildings within the complex.The airstrikes killed as many as 40 people, most of them children. OMAR HAJ KADOUR via Getty Images
The village of Haas is controlled by an alliance of rebel groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. State-run Syrian news reports said rebels in Haas had been targeted but left out mention of the school bombing. The Russian Defense Ministry denied that the attacks on the opposition-controlled village took place. But according to the state-funded television networkRT, the ministry offered to support an international inquiry to get at the true facts. We should call them to account and ask them to explain the Human Rights Watch report. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that no damage could be spotted on the roofs of the school buildings. But even from the photos supplied by the Russian government, HRW reported, damage consistent with airstrikes is visible that was not there in satellite images taken a few months earlier.
The satellite imagery is also consistent with multiple videos. Thevideoabove,posted by the media office of the Revolutionary Forces of Syria, shows an SU-24 aircraft above the site, and then a second video, posted by the Kafranabel Media Center,shows an object falling, causing an explosion. Only the Russian and Syrian militaries conduct airstrikes in Syria using SU-24 aircraft. Munitions that have been used by the Syrian Air Force earlier in the war and also during the joint RussianSyrian military operation that began in September 2015 bombs that detonate in the air, close to the ground, to maximize the damage created by the blast were used in the Oct. 26 airstrike. In response to the ongoing slaughter of Syrian civilians, Canada and other countries are calling for an immediate plenary meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.The very inquiry the Russians reportedly offered should also be put to the U.N. Security Council, and independent investigators should be appointed. As Tony Lake of UNICEF said, if this airstrike was deliberate, it is a war crime. War crimes are
1/2