US Investigating Civilian Casualties in East Syria Airstrike

Airwars reported strike killed a woman, injured two children

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.

Author: Jason Ditz

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.