The US-led coalition against ISIS issued a statement Friday confirming that they are investigating a possible civilian casualty incident in the village of Baghouz, the last ISIS-held village in eastern Syria.
The strike was reported by Airwars, and said that an attack on Tuesday
hit Baghouz, killing a woman and injuring her to children. The coalition
said they couldn’t comment further until the investigation finishes.
That’s still unusual for the coalition, as broadly they don’t even admit
to looking into attacks, particularly in those ISIS-held areas of
Syria, where scores of people have been reported killed in US strikes.
They almost never end up in the official reports.
The US has been providing air support for the Kurdish forces contesting
ISIS in that part of Syria. That air support often includes bombing
residential areas and killing a lot of civilians, or striking people
fleeing the area and just assuming some of them must be ISIS. This is a
big part of why estimates on civilian deaths from Airwars or the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights are vastly larger than the Pentagon ever
admits to.
US Investigating Civilian Casualties in East Syria Airstrike
Airwars reported strike killed a woman, injured two children
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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