According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, US airstrikes killed at least 16 civilians, including seven children, eight women, and an elderly man, in far eastern Syria. The civilians were fleeing an ISIS-held village that US-backed forces are attacking.



This is the latest in a growing number of civilian deaths in US strikes, coming amid the latest in a series of ‘final offensives’ by the Kurdish forces against the “last” ISIS villages in Syria.



These constant offensives have led to a stream of displaced civilians out of these areas. The civilians killed in these latest strikes were reportedly fleeing toward the Iraqi border.



US officials did not address the report yet, and it is rare for civilian deaths to officially end up on the Pentagon’s tally. It is worth wondering, however, if the strike was deliberately intended to prevent civilians crossing into neighboring Iraq, or just attacking any groups of people scrambling out of the village.





Author: Jason Ditz Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz