The US military has confirmed for the first time a 2019 airstrike in Syria that killed up to 80 people, mostly women and children, but claimed the strike was justified as it killed Islamic State (IS) fighters who were attacking coalition forces. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/14/us-confirms-2019-airstrike-hit-crowd-of-syrian-women-and-children

The confirmation from US Central Command followed a report by the New York Times in which former and current Pentagon officials alleged there had been a cover-up of a likely war crime. Central Command argued that because some women and children had taken up arms for IS, whether by indoctrination or choice, they “could not strictly be classified as civilians”. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/13/us/us-airstrikes-civilian-deaths.html

The strike was carried out on 18 March 2019 on the town of Baghuz on the Euphrates River, which forms the Syrian-Iraq border, where Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with US air support, were besieging the last organised remnants of IS (Islamic State) in Syria.

The New York Times investigation found that the airstrike was called in by a shadowy US special forces, and which appears to have side-stepped the procedures put in place to minimise civilian casualties.

US Central Command said the context for the airstrikes was a desperate last stand by IS. In a statement to the BBC, spokesman Cpt Bill Urban said US troops had been assured there were no civilians in the area at the time of the attack. Only afterwards, he went on, did the US become aware of high-resolution video from a drone operated by an unidentified US ally suggesting civilians had been present. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59279585

"The reason for this uncertainty is that multiple armed women and at least one-armed child were observed in the video, and the exact mixture of armed and unarmed personnel could not be conclusively determined. Likely, a majority of those killed were also combatants at the time of the strike, however, it is also highly likely that there were additional civilians killed by these two strikes."

An investigation concluded that "these two strikes were legitimate self-defence strikes" and "no disciplinary actions were warranted", Cpt Urban continued.

READ MORE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/11/14/airstrike-syria-killed-civilians/