The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: civilian deaths
Suspected U.S. Coalition Strikes Kill 56 Civilians In IS-Held Syrian City: Monitor

Suspected U.S. Coalition Strikes Kill 56 Civilians In IS-Held Syrian City: Monitor

At least 56 civilians were killed on Tuesday in air strikes north of the besieged Islamic State-held city of Manbij in northern Syria, and residents said they believed the attack was carried out by U.S.-led warplanes, a monitoring group said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included 11 children, and that dozens more people were wounded.

The U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, launched an offensive at the end of May to seize the last territory held by Islamic State (IS) insurgents on Syria‘s frontier with Turkey.

Supported by U.S. coalition air strikes, the SDF has surrounded and fought their way into parts of the city, but Islamic State attacks still occur in some areas of the surrounding countryside.

On Monday, 21 people were killed in raids also believed to have been conducted by U.S.-led coalition aircraft on Manbij’s northern Hazawneh quarter.

In a statement, rights watchdog Amnesty International said the U.S.-led coalition must do more to prevent civilian deaths.

“Anyone responsible for violations of international humanitarian law must be brought to justice and victims and their families should receive full reparation,” Amnesty’s interim Middle East director Magdalena Mughrabi said.

Progress into Manbij city has been slow. The militants have deployed snipers, planted mines and prevented civilians from leaving, hampering efforts to bomb the city without causing heavy casualties, according to Kurdish sources.

The Observatory said at least 104 civilians have died from air strikes since the start of the Manbij offensive in late May.

Syria‘s main opposition body, the High Negotiations Committee, criticized both the SDF and the coalition, which it blamed for what it said were hundreds of civilian deaths around Manbij.

“The lives of Syrian civilians are being lost in their hundreds whilst there is a deafening international silence,” it said in a letter addressed to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Some armed opposition groups have been separately fighting the SDF in parts of Aleppo province.

Colonel Chris Garver, a spokesman for the U.S. coalition against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, said it was looking into reports of civilian deaths but was being “extraordinarily careful to make sure” air strikes were killing IS fighters.

“Around Manbij, the Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC – Arab groups within the SDF), which is leading that fight, is being very slow and deliberate in that fight to protect civilians which we know are inside.”

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights recently voiced concern for the roughly 70,000 civilians believed to be trapped between warring parties in Manbij.

“Civilians have…reportedly been killed if they leave their homes or attempt to flee. Families are unable to access local cemeteries to bury their relatives who have died or been killed, and are burying them in their gardens or keeping the corpses in bunkers,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said.

“The town has no electricity or water at present, and no medical facilities are known to be operating. As the SDF closes in on the city, (Islamic State) has not permitted civilians to leave the area.”

The coalition said it has conducted more than 450 strikes in the vicinity of Manbij. It routinely investigates civilian deaths and publishes the results of confirmed incidents.

Between Sept. 10, 2015 and Feb. 2, 2016, coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria probably killed 20 civilians and injured 11 others, the U.S. Central Command said in April.

On Tuesday, the coalition said the SAC captured an IS command center in western Manbij on Sunday that was concealed in a hospital and was also being used as a logistics hub.

The SAC had also taken a significant area of the city during the operation, giving civilians an opportunity to flee, a statement from the Combined Joint Task Force said.

 

Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut. Additional reporting by John Davison and Stephen Kalin in Baghdad; editing by Mark Heinrich, Larry King

Photo: Manbij Military Council fighters stand at a checkout point overlooking rising smoke from Manbij city, Aleppo province, Syria June 8, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said 

U.S. Military Denies Claims Of Civilian Deaths In Targeting Islamic State

U.S. Military Denies Claims Of Civilian Deaths In Targeting Islamic State

By W.J. Hennigan, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar — The sun was setting over the desert as Lt. Col. Jose “Ed” Sumangil, commander of a B-1 bomber squadron known as “The Bats,” stepped into a room crowded with pilots and crews for a final briefing before the night’s combat mission.

Sumangil, a U.S. Air Force weapons systems officer, could recite part of the briefing word for word because he has heard it before every bombing run.

“Savor the moment,” the PowerPoint slides read. “Be lethal and accurate.” And above all, avoid “civcas,” military jargon for civilian casualties.

“It’s our mantra,” Sumangil said before donning his survival suit and helmet, strapping on a semiautomatic pistol and heading out to the flight line. “We do everything we can, every step of the way, to mitigate against civilian deaths.”

U.S. and coalition warplanes have dropped more than 8,200 guided bombs and missiles on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since last summer. With the latest surveillance and guidance systems, commanders say, they do more than ever before to prevent bombs from hitting hospitals or causing any sort of unintended fatalities that could bolster support for the Sunni Muslim extremists.

“We can lose this war with one bomb,” said Air Force Col. Lynn “Woody” Peitz, deputy commander of the air operations center at Al Udeid. “The strategic mistake is what I fear the most.”

How well they’re doing is a matter of dispute.

The Pentagon says it has seen no proof that civilians have been killed in more than 2,300 airstrikes on vehicles, gun placements, weapons depots, and other military targets, including some in urban areas like Raqqa and Aleppo in Syria.

But a gulf has opened between the military and critics from human rights groups, who say dozens of civilians have died as a result of flawed intelligence, errant bombs or poor targeting by the U.S. or its allies.

The issue echoed across the United States last week when the Islamic State group said a Jordanian airstrike had killed American hostage Kayla Mueller in a building in Syria. The White House confirmed Mueller’s death, as well as an airstrike on the building cited by the militant group, but said U.S. officials could not validate, and would not investigate, precisely how or where she had died.

U.S. Central Command said last month it had examined 18 claims of civilian deaths, nine each from Iraq and Syria, and had dismissed 13 as “not credible.” It is still reviewing the other five, and has begun investigations into three — two in Syria, one in Iraq — that officials found were based on credible evidence.

The military refuses to release details about the attacks under review and what warrants an investigation.

Lama Fakih, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, has asked Central Command to explain its process. She noted that three Syrian residents told the group that a U.S. cruise missile killed seven women and children in Idlib province on Sept. 23. The military denied any civilian casualties.

“We want their calculations in how they determine whether or not something is credible,” Fakih said.

Military officials say those claiming casualties must produce corroborating statements, photographs, or other verifiable evidence for claims to be further investigated. But that sort of proof is often impossible to obtain.

Coalition airstrikes target sites that the militants control and are largely inaccessible to outsiders. Residents may risk torture or death by stepping forward to work with foreigners.

The focal point of the dispute is the CAOC — the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid — a windowless, warehouse-sized, two-story command hub for U.S. and allied military operations against Islamic State.

The operation’s floor resembles NASA’s mission control center in Houston, with analysts seated in rows before computer monitors. Two IMAX-size screens shimmer on the walls with real-time video from fighter jets and bombers over Iraq and Syria, as well as streaming video from Predator and Reaper drones.

With no U.S. ground troops directing fire from the front lines, the analysts rely on airborne surveillance and reports from Kurdish fighters and other allies fighting the militants in Iraq and Syria.

Before a major operation, commanders order an intelligence “soak” of the battlefield, using spy planes, drones, and satellites for days to try to determine where civilians live and work, and where militants are holed up. Systems also focus on collecting Islamic State cellphone and digital communications.

Analysts pore over the data and determine where, what, and when to strike. They select which type of bomb — 500 pounds to 2,000 pounds, laser-guided or GPS-guided — using a computer program called the “weaponeering solution” that they say generates the best coordinates to maximize militant casualties while minimizing potential harm to civilians.

The information is passed to bomber and fighter crews while they are over the war zone. Sumangil, the B-1 squadron commander, said he would let militants escape if there were a risk of civilian casualties.

“There are risks we take on every mission,” he said. “We will not risk the lives of innocent civilians. That’s a chance we don’t take.”

That’s not always so clear from the ground, critics say, pointing to an attack on the northern Syrian town of Al Bab.

About 7:20 p.m. on Dec. 28, a U.S. fighter jet bombed a building in Al Bab. U.S. Central Command identified it as an Islamic State headquarters, and said the bomb run was so well “engineered and successfully executed” that only part of the structure was destroyed.

The military did not acknowledge any civilian casualties. Human rights groups say otherwise.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, head of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an independent group that tracks casualties in Syria, said the airstrike leveled a government center that Islamic State was using to hold prisoners, including locals accused of violating the militants’ harsh Islamic laws. Ghany’s group said 37 civilians were killed in the attack, citing interviews with witnesses and photographs.

Col. Patrick Ryder, spokesman for Central Command, said a Syrian military aircraft had attacked a nearby building in Al Bab a day or so before the U.S. attack, implying it might be to blame.

“If there is new, substantive information available, we welcome it, and will certainly review it,” Ryder said.

In a phone interview from Doha, Qatar’s capital, Ghany said he was compiling that information, but he had few doubts about what happened. Syrian helicopters and fighters fly much lower than U.S. warplanes.

“If anyone knows the difference between a regime strike and a coalition strike, it is these people,” Ghany said. “They have been through strikes of all kinds. There’s a clear difference.”

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Libyan Man Files Lawsuit Against NATO For 13 Civilian Deaths

Civilian deaths are a far-too-common occurrence in wars, but the victims’ families rarely receive justice. Khalid el Hamidi, a retired Libyan general and member of the government’s Revolutionary Council, has filed a civil lawsuit against NATO for killing 13 civilians. Two NATO bombs destroyed his home in Surman on June 20 at 2:30 a.m., resulting in the deaths of Hamidi’s relatives, three children, and household help. As AP reports :

At the time, NATO acknowledged it had targeted the compound but described it as a “command and control” center. [Hamidi’s lawyer] Ceccaldi said it was a residence in a quiet civilian neighborhood and was therefore not a legitimate target under the Geneva Convention on the rules of war.

Ceccaldi also urged the International Criminal Court to take the Hamidi case, which he called an “evident war crime.” He said the court should consider NATO’s commanders as liable for the actions of their subordinates, such as air force bombers.

Hamidi filed the lawsuit in Belgium because, although NATO and other international organizations have diplomatic immunity in criminal cases, the Brussels-based group can still be tried in Belgian civil suits. Hamidi’s lawyers have requested that the Brussels District Court send two experts to Libya “to assess physical and psychological damage from the attack” and determine estimated monetary compensation.

While it is relatively unlikely that Hamidi will successfully hold NATO accountable, it is impossible that any amount of money could match the immeasurable grief and devastation caused by the bombs. Hamidi lost his home and his family, and his country continues to be torn apart by war. Given the millions of dollars the United States pours every year into new military technologies, the “accidental” bombing of civilian residences is hard to bear.