U.S. military confirms two civilian casualties in war against Islamic State
 American airstrikes have killed at least two civilians since they began in Iraq and Syria last year, the Pentagon said Thursday in its first acknowledgment of noncombatant deaths in the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State. The U.S. Central Command, announcing the results of a four-month investigation, said it had concluded that two children were probably killed in the strikes Nov. 5 and 6 around the city of Harem in Syria. The strikes targeted an al-Qaeda cell known as the Khorasan group. Centcom is investigating three other reports of civilian casualties: two in Iraq and another in Syria, officials said. A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the Centcom findings, said investigators faced a difficult task in establishing the results of air attacks in a conflict with few U.S. troops on the ground. About 3,000 U.S. troops are training and advising local troops in Iraq; there are no U.S. forces in Syria. Since August, the United States and allied nations have launched 2,458 airstrikes in Iraq and 1,593 strikes in Syria, mostly against the Islamic State but occasionally against other militants. While coalition aircraft have tried to avoid strikes on urban areas, they have at times dropped bombs inside cities. The official said the low civilian death toll that Centcom has established underscored the precision of U.S. airstrikes. “We take all possible measures to prevent casualties to noncombatants,” he said. Human rights groups have claimed much higher death tolls among civilians from some U.S airstrikes. In a report released in November, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said one of the children killed was a 5-year-old girl named Daniya Ali al-Haj Qaddour, the daughter of a fighter from the Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra. Video footage that the group said was filmed in the aftermath of the early-November strikes showed destroyed buildings and a vast field of rubble. The group also posted a photo of a young girl in pigtails it said was Daniya, and a link to a photo of what it said was her body. Centcom said it was not aware at the time of the strikes that any children lived at those sites. |
