Air strikes by the United States in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) may have killed 119 civilians since 2014, the Pentagon said Nov. 9, releasing a death toll that is far lower than the casualty estimates supplied by monitoring groups.
The U.S. military said 64 civilians were killed and eight were injured in 24 U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria over the past year, based on newly completed investigations.
The figures released by Centcom, the U.S. military command in the Middle East, came from a months-long review of reports and databases, the Pentagon said, according to Agence France-Presse.
London-based NGO Airways estimates that coalition bombing has killed 1,787 civilians since the air campaign to destroy ISIL began in August 2014.
“We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties,” Col. John Thomas was quoted as saying in the Centcom statement. “We do all we can to minimize those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time.”
The Pentagon’s investigation found that “in each of these strikes, the right processes were followed; each complied with Law of Armed Conflict and significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome,” Thomas said.
The United States, which carries out 80 percent of the coalition bombing, says it uses precision-guided munitions that limit civilian casualties.
Meanwhile, Russia is accused of using conventional bombs that are much more deadly to civilian populations.
Amnesty International estimates that there have been at least 300 civilian victims in Syria alone from coalition strikes.