United States led coalition airstrikes have “unintentionally” killed 801 civilians since August 2014, when the fight against the Islamic State began, Pentagon’s newest report shows. Human rights groups and independent observers think that the number is much bigger, Newsweek reports.
Airwars, which tracks international airstrikes against the Islamic State, says that the U.S.-led coalition strikes have killed more than 5,900 civilians. The New York Times recently reported that one in five of the coalition strikes resulted in civilian deaths. That is more than 31 times the official count.
Pentagon’s report states that from August 2014 until October this year, the coalition carried out 28,198 strikes, but Amnesty International says the numbers are higher. Even though the coalition says that less than 20 civilians were killed in the four-month battle in Raqqa, Raed Jarrar, AI’s advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa, says that the estimations of his organizations are that almost 1,500 civilians have lost their lives as a consequence of the coalition’s strikes during the same period. According to Jarrar, Pentagon has not counted the civilians killed by local forces and militias allied with the coalition. He says that many of them have committed war crimes.
“Rather than downplaying the numbers of civilian casualties, the international coalition should ensure they abide by international humanitarian law principles and conduct a transparent investigation into reports of civilians harmed by them and their local allies,” Jarrar says.
According to Newsweek, since President Donald Trump entered the White House, the United States killed more civilians while fighting the Islamic State than while Barack Obama was president. Trump rolled back limitations put in place by Obama to limit civilian casualties and gave more autonomy to the military when it comes to combating terrorism.
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