(AhlulBayt News Agency) - The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US air strikes in Iraq and Syria against the ISIS terrorist group may have killed up to 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than casualty estimates by monitoring groups.
The figures released by Centcom, the US military command in the Middle East, came from a months-long review of reports and databases, it said, and included a list of 24 air strikes in the past year in which it said up to 64 civilians had been killed and eight others injured.
In the worst single incident, it said 10 civilians had been killed in a strike on an ISIS weapons production facility near Mosul, Iraq, on 5 March 2016.
London-based NGO Airwars.org estimates coalition bombing has killed 1,787 civilians since the air campaign to destroy ISIS began in August 2014.
"We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties," Colonel John Thomas was quoted as saying in the Centcom statement.
"Sometimes civilians bear the brunt of military action but we do all we can to minimize those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time."
The Pentagon's investigation found that "in each of these strikes the right processes were followed; each complied with Law of Armed Conflict and significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome," Thomas said.
The US, which carries out 80 percent of the coalition bombing, says it uses precision-guided munitions that limit civilian casualties.
But questions have long been raised about the accuracy and methods of assessment used by the US military to assess civilian casualties.
The US and some of its Arab allies began their allegedly anti-ISIS campaign in Syria in September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.
Since then, they have been carrying out airstrikes in the war-ravaged country, but their air raids have done little to stop the Takfiri group’s advances there.
Syria has been gripped by a foreign-backed militancy since March 2011 and ISIS terrorists still control parts of the country and neighboring Iraq.
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source : middleeast eye
Thursday
10 November 2016
12:52:32 PM
791060
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US air strikes in Iraq and Syria against the ISIS terrorist group may have killed up to 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than casualty estimates by monitoring groups.