BEIRUT – The US-led coalition said Friday it had unintentionally killedmore than 1,300 civilians in air strikes during its fight against theIslamic State group in Iraq and Syria since 2014.
The figure is far lower than the death tolls given by groups which havemonitored the conflicts in the two countries.
“The coalition conducted 34,502 strikes between August 2014 and the end ofApril 2019,” it said in a statement.
During this period, it “assesses at least 1,302 civilians have beenunintentionally killed by coalition strikes”.
The coalition said it was still assessing 111 additional claims ofcivilians deaths, and was ready to receive new allegations or freshevidence to review.
The coalition has repeatedly said it does all it can to avoid civiliandeaths.
Amnesty International welcomed the latest acknowledgement ofresponsibility, but said the real civilian death toll was likely muchhigher.
“The coalition remains deeply in denial about the devastating scale of thecivilian casualties caused by their operations in both Iraq and Syria,”said Donatella Rovera from the London-based group.
And while the coalition has admitted responsibility after cases wereinvestigated by rights groups, it has failed to “provide reasons for thecivilian casualties”, she said.
“Without a clear examination of what went wrong in each case, lessons cannever be learned,” Rovera said.
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In a report released last month, Amnesty and airstrike monitor Airwarsfound that coalition air strikes killed 1,600 civilians just in thefour-months blitz to oust IS from the Syrian city of Raqa.
Airwars, an NGO which monitors civilian casualties from air strikesworldwide, estimates more than 7,900 civilians have been killed incoalition raids — well in excess of the total acknowledged by thecoalition.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, sayscoalition strikes have taken the lives of 3,800 civilians in Syria alone.
IS jihadists seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, declaring a”caliphate” in areas they controlled.
But several offensives with coalition backing chipped away at the”caliphate” until it was declared eliminated on March 23.
Ambushes and hit-and-run attacks have continued in both countries.
The coalition is continuing to work “to deny Daesh any physical space andinfluence in the region as well as deny Daesh the resources they need toresurge”, it said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. -APP/AFP
