[JURIST] Syrian government air strikes on the northern city of al-Raqqa last November killed “dozens of civilians and injured many more,” Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] reported [press release] Tuesday. Although it was revealed on two occasions in November that the Syrian forces had “attacked fighters affiliated to the armed group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS),” it was never acknowledged that civilians had died in the attacks. Al-Raqqa has been repeatedly targeted “in the context of the ongoing multi-party conflict in the country;” between November 11th and 29th in 2014, there were 23 air strikes according to local activists. AI is calling on the Syrian government to “half aerial and other attacks that violate international humanitarian law.” The UN has also urged [press release] the international community to bring the “four-year long war to a close” so as to end the “culture of impunity” within Syria. In this, they wish to bring forward the war criminals responsible for much of the violence within the country over the past four years.

The Islamic State [JURIST backgrounder], also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has caused increasing international alarm over its human rights abuses [JURIST report] since its insurgence into Syria and Iraq in 2013. In November UN commission of inquiry for the Syrian Arab Republic [official website] reported [JURIST report] that IS is responsible for war crimes on a “massive scale” in Syria. Also In November HRW reported that IS militants tortured and abused [JURIST report] Kurdish children in Syria. The UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic [official website] expressed grave concerns [JURIST report] in October about escalating violence against civilians. In September, the newly appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad criticized [JURIST report] IS for its recent killings and human rights violations of women in IS-controlled areas in Iraq.