Status: 11/14/2021 4:30 p.m.
The US military has apparently hidden that many civilians were killed in one of its air strikes in Syria. As the “New York Times” reports, more than 60 women and children were killed in the 2019 attack on IS.
According to a report in the “New York Times”, dozens of civilians were killed in an air strike by the US military in the fight against the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) in Syria in 2019. Up to 80 people – including more than a dozen IS fighters – are said to have been killed in the attack on a camp in Baghus in eastern Syria, not far from the Iraqi border.
In the fight against IS it was one of the incidents with the most civilian casualties, “but it was never publicly acknowledged by the US military”, reported the “New York Times” (“NYT”).
Air raid in March 2019
In its report, the newspaper cites several sources familiar with the process as well as some secret internal reports by the US military on the air strike of March 18, 2019. According to this, two successive air strikes are said to have been requested by a special unit for the fight against ISIS and have surprised the responsible US command center in the emirate of Qatar.
The headquarters had the camp in Baghus – at that time one of the last IS positions – under observation with its own high-resolution drone and had only seen a “large gathering of women and children” on a river bank at the site of the later bombing . A military lawyer in charge in Qatar is said to have immediately reported the air strike as a possible war crime.
Investigation with no official result
According to the “NYT”, a thorough investigation of the incident was prevented by the military on several occasions. The Department of Defense’s independent control agency reportedly started an investigation but never released a relevant finding, it said.
After the newspaper confronted Centcom, the US command center responsible for the region, with the results of its research, the military confirmed the air strike publicly for the first time, according to the “NYT”. Accordingly, Centcom spoke of a militarily justified air strike. One statement said that the attacks were legitimate self-defense and that reasonable steps were taken to exclude the presence of civilians.
“We detest the loss of innocent lives and are taking all possible measures to prevent it. In which case, we reported the attack ourselves and based on our own knowledge, and take full responsibility for the accidental loss of life,” said the US -Central Command.
16 IS fighters killed
The US military has confirmed that 80 people were killed in the air strikes, including 16 IS fighters and four civilians. In the case of the remaining 60 victims, it was not clear whether they were civilians, as women and children sometimes also took up arms at IS, said Centcom, according to the report.
The Inspector General of the Ministry of Defense initiated an investigation into the incident. in the official annual report of the US armed forces on civilian casualties in military operations in 2019 the air strike on the camp in Baghus is not mentioned. In eleven US operations in Syria in 2019, 22 civilians were killed, it says there.