Enlarge image
People stand on top of a destroyed building in the Syrian city of Ariha (archive image)
Photo: Anas Alkharboutli / dpa
According to a report in the "New York Times", dozens of civilians were killed in an air strike by the US military in the fight against the terrorist militia "Islamic State" (IS) in Syria in 2019. Up to 80 people - including more than a dozen IS fighters - are said to have died in the attack on a camp in Baghus in eastern Syria, not far from the Iraqi border. In the fight against IS, it was one of the incidents with the highest number of civilian casualties, "but it was never publicly acknowledged by the US military," the newspaper reported at the weekend.
In its report, the New York Times cites several sources familiar with the process as well as some secret internal reports by the US military on the air strike on March 18, 2019. According to this, the air strike is to be requested by a special unit for the fight against ISIS and also surprised the responsible US command center in the emirate of Qatar. The headquarters had the camp in Baghus - at that time one of the last IS positions - under observation with its own high-resolution drone and had only seen a "large gathering of women and children" crouching on a river bank at the site of the later bombing.
A military lawyer in charge in Qatar is said to have immediately reported the air strike as a possible war crime.
According to the New York Times, a thorough investigation into the incident was prevented by the military on several occasions.
The independent control authority of the Ministry of Defense is said to have started an investigation, but never published a relevant result, as it was said.
Attack is not mentioned in the official annual report
more on the subject
Air strike in northwest Syria: US military apparently kills senior al-Qaida member
Militia "Islamic State": Pentagon warns of terrorist attacks in the USA within six months
Intellectual al-Haj Saleh on the failure of the Syrian revolution: So much suffering, so much blood - was it worth it? By Leon Holly
After the newspaper confronted Centcom, the command center responsible for the region, with the results of its research, the military publicly confirmed the air strike for the first time, according to the report.
Accordingly, Centcom spoke of a militarily justified air strike in which 16 IS fighters and four civilians were killed.
With the remaining 60 victims it was not clear whether they were civilians, because women and children sometimes took up arms at IS, Centcom said.
The air strike on the Baghus camp is not mentioned in the official annual report of the US armed forces on civilian casualties in military operations in 2019.
In eleven US operations in Syria in 2019, 22 civilians were killed, it says there.
tfb / dpa / Reuters
