The U.S. military has not released data on the large number of civilian casualties, including children, in airstrikes in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, according to The New York Times, which received more than 1,300 internal documents from the US Department of Defense. , according to which the Pentagon leadership has not conducted a full investigation into such incidents and has not taken measures to prevent them in the future.
The publication notes that according to official Pentagon statistics, 1417 civilians have been killed in attacks on Islamic State (IS) fighters in Syria and Iraq since 2014, and another 188 civilians have died as a result of US air strikes. strikes in Afghanistan in 2018. However, the materials analyzed by the journalists of the publication show that the "hundreds of victims" among the civilian population were simply not taken into account. At the same time, their exact number cannot be determined at the moment, the newspaper admits.
According to The New York Times, civilian casualties were often caused by the fact that the military, when preparing to strike, misjudged the situation on the ground, considering civilians terrorists. In many cases, US military personnel did not consider that civilians could be housed in buildings that the military said were occupied by militants and terrorists. In addition, in a number of cases, when analyzing aerial footage before the strike, the US military did not inform the leadership that there may be civilians among the terrorists, including children. At the same time, based on data from The New York Times, often the quality and number of air personnel during the preparation of the strike did not allow to establish completely whether members of the civilian population were in the area of the attack.
The newspaper emphasizes that the Pentagon's leadership has published estimates of possible civilian casualties in only a small number of cases. At the same time, internal proceedings rarely lead to changes in the preparation for future strikes and never lead to disciplinary proceedings against servicemen. Full investigations have been recommended for only 12% of the total number of air strikes that may have killed civilians, and many have relied on "incomplete or incorrect" evidence and have been dropped. As a result of investigations, only "in less than ten cases" has the US leadership paid compensation to the families of those killed and injured.
A spokesman for the US Central Command (CENTCOM), Bill Urban, said in response to a question from The New York Times that "even the best technology in the world makes mistakes due to incomplete information or misinterpretation." "We are investigating every credible case and regretting every innocent life lost," Urban said. At the same time, he stressed that "the mistake of hitting civilians, with the fullest information and in compliance with the tasks set, is not a basis for disciplinary action."
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