Coalition’s internal assessments of civilian casualties is markedly lower than other independent estimates during the 18-month war over Iraq and Syria

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The US-led military coalition has called its war against the Islamic State the “most precise air campaign in history” despite having identified 16 civilians mistakenly killed and another nine injured in strikes last summer.

Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for the coalition, told reporters on Friday he expects “additional announcements” about civilian casualties in the “near future”, pending ongoing internal investigations.

Ryder said the coalition currently has 14 allegations of casualty incidents left to sift through, five of which have prompted active investigations, after it closed 19 investigations and rejected 87 other allegations for what Ryder said was a lack of credibility.



The coalition’s internal assessments of civilian casualties it has inflicted is also markedly lower than other independent estimates during the 18-month war over Iraq and Syria.

So far, the US and its allies have dropped 35,000 bombs and missiles against Isis targets in both Iraq and Syria in nearly 9,800 airstrikes, prompting Ryder to hail the “precision” of the war.



US-led airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq – interactive Read more

But several critics of the war on the US presidential campaign trail, including lead Republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, have called the US too timid in attacking Isis targets, claiming that the Obama White House has tied the hands of the military out of an inordinate concern with minimizing collateral damage.



“The low numbers here are a testament to our aviators and the mission planners and the incredible amount of effort that goes into – not only from the intelligence analysts, but the pre-mission coordination – ensuring that when we conduct these strikes, they’re against the intended targets,” Ryder said.

“This is the most precise air campaign in history.”

However independent estimates put the civilian toll far higher than the 16 deaths Centcom has so far announced. Airwars, a monitoring group, has identified reports of at least 824 civilians who have been killed in coalition strikes.

This week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another monitoring organisation, also claimed that Russian airstrikes had killed more than 1,000 civilians since September, including more than 200 children.

Ryder said the US was “continually looking at our processes” for combat effectiveness and reduced impact to civilians.

“We of course deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from these strikes and express our deepest sympathies to the families and those affected,” he said.

Until late last year, the US-led coalition publicly maintained that it could not confirm having killed or injured any civilians at all. The US remains the only nation among the 13 militaries currently conducting operations as part of the coalition to have acknowledged any civilian deaths.

Pentagon admits two children probably killed in US-led air strike in Syria Read more

Last week, Centcom released five cases in which it said civilians had been killed, two of which had not previously been reported by the media.



The coalition released its latest civilian-casualty assessment on Friday, reporting five further strikes that it found had killed or wounded civilians within a two-week window last July.

It claimed that on 4 July, errant bombing killed two Syrian civilians and wounded another near the Isis stronghold of Raqqa, which US defense chief Ashton Carter has said will be the focus of a major coalition offensive in 2016. Three civilians had died in a separate strike in Raqqa that day, Centcom announced last week.



Near Mosul, another such stronghold the US and Iraqi forces are seeking to reclaim, the US announced Friday it had injured a civilian after hitting an Isis convoy on 17 July.

Near Sarmada, a US airstrike on an alleged leader of the “Khorasan Group,” an al-Qaida affiliate whose authenticity has come into question, wounded two civilians on a motorcycle on 8 July.



In two of the five strikes Centcom released today, civilians were killed or wounded by secondary explosions, in which missiles hit trucks or buildings full of explosives.

“We have the ability up until a few seconds before those bombs impact to wave off , for example, if we see there’s a potential harm to civilians. But again, we can’t guarantee that there won’t be civilian casualties and that is unfortunate, but it is a reality of the situation we’re in,” Ryder said.



Centcom’s latest casualty figures do not include a “friendly fire” incident that killed nine Iraqi soldiers in December.

Chris Woods of Airwars said: “We welcome this accelerated process from Centcom of reporting these cases, but the fact that within a short window of 13 days we have Centcom admitting five such incidents shows that civilian casualties have not been the rarity some politicians claim they have been.”