The death toll of civilians in US military airstrikes in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan is greatly underestimated. This statement was made by the New York Times.

The publication has studied more than a thousand documents of the US Department of Defense. In addition, the journalists conducted an assessment of the losses, and also visited over a hundred places associated with the airstrikes.

Additionally, newspaper staff recorded interviews with surviving local residents and former and current US officials.

“It is impossible to determine the total number of victims, but one thing is for sure: it is much higher than the Pentagon admitted,” the material says.

According to official statistics, as a result of US airstrikes in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group banned in Russia, 1,417 civilians have died in Iraq and Syria. In addition, 188 people were killed by US strikes in Afghanistan.

According to the newspaper, hundreds of deaths were not taken into account by the compilers of the statistics. In particular, only 12% of strikes with the risk of death of civilians were recommended for a full investigation. At the same time, in many cases, the checks were carried out by the command that delivered the strikes.

The article also points out that reports of civilian casualties were often dismissed as the bodies of the victims were not captured in the footage of the strikes. Among other things, the publication claims that in less than ten cases, the American side carried out the payment of compensation.

Earlier, the media reported that the US military was silent about the airstrike in Syria in 2019. Then, as a result of the incident, at least 70 people died.

Prior to that, the Pentagon apologized for the erroneous air strike on Kabul on August 29. The head of the US military department emphasized that Washington will learn from this terrible mistake. The US military confirmed that the incident killed ten civilians, including seven children.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *