“They Came to Kill Us”

I- Introduction:

The Russian military intervention added insult to injury for Syrian people where it was supposed to alleviate one of the burdens characterized by ISIL and put an end to it according to Russian officials who criticized the deceleration of accomplishments on behalf of the International Coalition.

However, three months have passed since the Russian intervention and no clear signs of putting an end to ISIL are seen. 85-90% of the Russian air strikes were on regions under the control of armed opposition and often on densely populated areas, markets, neighborhoods, hospitals and vital facilities.

Additionally, the Russian air strikes targeted dozens of military regions for armed opposition groups which are fighting ISIL and the Syrian regime at the same time. We faced several difficulties in locating these targets and in recording the number of injured or killed individuals due to extreme secrecy on behalf of the armed opposition groups since to them this information is considered as military secrets. Therefore, what we were able to record is the bare minimum of what we were able to document. However, in some cases, SNHR’s teams were able to document the target of neighborhoods, markets and different vital facilities.

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