US claims 2019 airstrike that hit Syrian women and children was justified

[Celerity]

Baghuz bombing of people trying to escape fighting was covered up, says NY Times report

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/14/us-confirms-2019-airstrike-hit-crowd-of-syrian-women-and-children

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 fighters who were attacking coalition forces.

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”.

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 in Syria.

The Times report said two bombs were dropped on a crowd of women and children, trying to escape the fighting on the banks of the Euphrates, who had been identified as civilians by a US drone operated from Qatar. It said the drone operators in Al-Udeid airbase were stunned when they saw the first 500lb bomb dropped by a US F-15E plane, and then a second, 2,000lb bomb dropped on the survivors.

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