Rights group says US-led coalition destroyed Syrian city

Black smoke rises from a coalition airstrike which attacked an Islamic State militant position, on the front line on the eastern side of Raqqa, Syria. Photo / AP

An international human rights group has accused the United States and its allies of showing little regard for civilians' lives while attacking the Syrian city that was once the de-facto capital of Isis, an allegation denied by the American military.

Amnesty International said the US-led coalition's assault last year on Raqqa killed hundreds of civilians and reduced sections of the city to rubble.

Researchers for Amnesty interviewed more than 100 residents and visited 42 coalition targets in the city in a two-week period in February. They published their findings in a report titled War of Annihilation, in a reference to the language used by US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis in the lead-up to the campaign.

US Army Colonel Sean Ryan, spokesman for the coalition, called the assertions "grossly inaccurate". He said the coalition and allied Syrian forces organised safe passages for residents to flee, but Isis (Islamic State) militants trapped them inside to use as human shields.

"When you have an enemy that uses noncombatants as collateral damage, it's very difficult when you fight an enemy like that to completely avoid any casualties," Ryan said.

Benjamin Walsby, another investigator on the Amnesty team, said the coalition should have adjusted its strategy accordingly.

"If you rely on long-range tactics like artillery and airstrikes, then civilians are very likely to pay the price, and that appears to be what happened in Raqqa," he said.

The battle for Raqqa, once a city of 200,000 people, played out over four harrowing months last year, with the coalition playing a supporting role as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces fought street by street.

The coalition unleashed wave after wave of airstrikes and shell fire until the last of the militants left Raqqa in October.

Command Sergeant John Wayne Troxell of the US Army said in January that US Marines had fired 30,000 artillery shells on the city.

When the Associated Press visited in April, it found Raqqa in ruins and its streets smelling of rotting bodies. Civil workers had pulled nearly 500 corpses from the rubble and were still finding more six months after the fighting.

Residents complained that the coalition bombing was indiscriminate and demanded compensation. According to the Raqqa Civil Council, which took over the administration of the city, said 65 per cent of homes had been destroyed.

Isis militants booby-trapped the city, leaving streets and homes too dangerous for immediate reoccupation.

- AP