Airwars, which monitors bombing casualties from its offices in Europe and the Middle East, said that contention was concerning. Conveniently for them, these are the agencies that will be targeting it. As a territorial target, ISIS centers virtually exclusively on Iraq and Syria, with smaller affiliates elsewhere no real threat to the US. Three were judged to be unfounded, while the fourth found two innocent civilians were killed and two other people wounded. Others are contested – or didn’t contain the deaths of civilians as initially claimed.
Advertisement
Sahr Muhamadally, from the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said: “All allegations of civilian harm, including from open sources, should be investigated by the coalition and processes should be in place to acknowledge and assist those harmed”.
“Yet it’s also clear that in this same period, many more civilians have been killed by Syrian and Iraqi government forces, by Islamic State and by various rebel and militia groups operating on both sides of the border”. “The coalition has confirmed air strikes at the location for February 2nd-3rd 2015, reporting that ‘Near Al Hasakah, two airstrikes struck multiple ISIL oil pump jacks and destroyed four ISIL mobile drilling rigs.’ In the view of Airwars and other monitoring groups, there is a high likelihood Mr alMussul and his daughters died as a result of Coalition actions”. The Pentagon had not included that strike in its daily tally of raids, and has still not acknowledged the civilian toll. Check back soon for further information.
In Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition includes France, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, and Canada.
The U.S. military outfit leading the campaign, U.S. Central Command, has to date only published one official investigation on civilian deaths.
Airwars used global and local news reports in Arabic and English, social media postings including photos and videos, and the findings of monitoring groups on the ground to cross-reference these with coalition military reports.
The report, entitled “Cause for Concern”, said that these had come in 57 incidents, in which it believed there was enough evidence on the public record to indicate coalition responsibility for their deaths. It said the strikes have killed more than 15,000 Islamic State members.
As the report notes: “The present Coalition policy of downplaying or denying all claims of non-combatant fatalities makes little sense, and risks handing Islamic State and other forces a powerful propaganda tool”.
“With most areas bombed by the Coalition under Daesh (a common Arabic term for Islamic State) occupation, access remains nearly impossible”, it said.
“Moscow has stressed a couple of times that assistance, especially assistance extended to the Syrian opposition by some financial and technical methods, leads to further destabilization in the country”, Peskov told reporters.
Advertisement
One of many worst civilian casualty incidents claimed by the report passed off in Iraq in June 2015.
