US Central Command (CENTCOM) acknowledged on Thursday that its forces killed a civilian in a May 2023 drone strike in northwest Syria, walking back its initial claim that it killed an al-Qaeda leader.
Lufti Hasan Masto, a 56-year-old father of 10, was hit by a Hellfire missile on May 3, 2023, in a rural area of Syria’s northern Idlib province while tending his sheep. Evidence surfaced immediately that the US killed a civilian with the strike, but CENTCOM put out a statement claiming it killed an al-Qaeda leader even though who died wasn’t confirmed at the time.
CENTCOM said the investigation concluded on November 15, 2023, and it’s unclear why the command waited until now to make it public. “The investigation determined US forces misidentified the intended Al Qaeda target and that a civilian, Mr. Lufti Hasan Masto (Masto), was struck and killed instead. Many of the facts and other findings of the investigation involve classified information and cannot be shared publicly,” CENTCOM said in a press release.
There’s no sign there will be any accountability or punishment for the killing since the command claimed the investigation “concluded the strike was conducted in compliance with the law of armed conflict as well as Department of Defense and CENTCOM policies” and said it revealed “several issues that could be improved.”
US drone strikes have a history of killing civilians, but there is never any accountability. For example, after the Pentagon investigation of the August 2021 Kabuil drone strike that killed 10 civilians, including seven children, no military personnel were punished.
So, the difference between present day and WWII is the destruction is now slower and never ending. Total war; slow Hell everlasting.
CENTCOM has “accidentally” killed hundreds of civilians this past decade, so this is not “breaking news”.
The news is that they admitted it.
Like laughing in the faces of his children.
That’s like a murderer confessing to everyone about his victims but there is nothing anyone can do about it.
It only took a year. And yet the US can tell us exactly how many high level al Qaeda/ISIS operatives they kill within hours after an airstrike or drone strike. And always with the assurance that no civilians were killed.
Such a dangerous mission the man was on. My God! He may have had a plan to kill us all with his sheep!
let’s be sure his ten children hate America and everything it stands for, and don’t they have a good reason? our stupid enemy-creating, money-burning military murdered a father of ten while tending sheep. a citizen of syria bombed in syria by our military, attacking syria. who was the American drone pilot pussy wearing a flight suit, sitting in a fart shed, controlling the joystick, who pushed the kill button? You can be sure with LEO military hiring quotas and set-asides, he will be working for his state’s highway patrol when he gets out of the military, can’t wait to get pulled over at 11pm by that sociopath! He knows how to use state power to kill innocents and he will do it again.
Nothing is new here. There were many weddings , funerals, hospitals , schools, buildings , individuals, and markets were targeted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, And Niger that were never what the US Central Command claimed first time.
Who is Daniel Everette Hale?
What did Daniel Everette Hale do?
What “legal” action was taken against Daniel Everette Hale?
Why is Daniel Everette Hale mot mentioned in this article for who is?; for what he did?; for happened to him for what he did?
Is the author of this article a tool of Controlled Opposition?
Is this website the tool of Controlled Opposition?
dennis hanna
2023? That is ancient history in the killing game.