The USA military disclosed on Friday that an airstrike it carried out on an Islamic State checkpoint in Iraq likely killed at least four civilians, including a child.
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As US aircrews were preparing to strike the target, additional vehicles approached and one parked at the checkpoint, according to a Central Command statement. “One of the occupants got out and talked to [Islamic State] checkpoint guards”, said Col. Pat Ryder, spokesman for U.S. Central Command.
The report comes just as the air war targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has heated up considerably, with Russian Federation and France joining in the bombing in Syria, and American jets stepping up their strikes across both countries, including the targeting of civilian oil tankers moving black market Islamic State oil.
In May, it concluded two children had been killed in an air strike in Syria in November 2014.
“We regret the unintentional loss of lives and keep those families in our thoughts”, said Lt. Gen. CQ Brown of U.S. Air Forces Central Command.
“The coalition continues to take all reasonable measures during the targeting process to reduce as much as possible risks to non-combatants”, Brown said.
Several other vehicles pulled up to the checkpoint during that time and continued their journey after a brief stop. Their presence inside the vehicles had not been known, Ryder said, at the time the attack was authorized.
Because the drivers of the cars were talking to people at the checkpoint for about 40 minutes while other vehicles drove through, the United States of America pilot and supervisors decided the drivers were “ISIL and therefore lawful targets”. Based upon their actions, the aircrew and Combined Air Operations Center personnel assessed that they were also Islamic State members, the executive summary said. “There was no indication until after weapons release that there could potentially be civilians on that site”. He said they only left their vehicles after an A-10 attack plane had already released its weapons. “Our goal is to defeat (ISIS), a terrorist organization that continuously wraps itself around the population, and we do everything we can to prevent unintended deaths or injuries to non-combatants”.
The incident raises questions about how the USA military vets and carries out airstrikes against Islamic State militants, especially with limited intelligence available in the absence of US ground forces in the region.
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The allegation of civilian casualties from the attack was initially raised by an unidentified woman who emailed an worldwide humanitarian group to complain that it had killed two women and three children.
