United States military finds Iraq airstrike likely killed four civilians

A USA air strike that targeted an Islamic State checkpoint in Iraq in March likely killed four civilians, one of whom may have been a child, the US military said on Friday in a rare statement acknowledging the death of civilians.

An Iraqi citizen subsequently reported that the attack destroyed her vehicle and killed the passengers inside, which prompted the U.S. Air Force’s Central Command to open an investigation on April 20.

The report’s release comes just one day after Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that the Pentagon is prepared to loosen the rules of engagement against the Islamic State, which a few have said are unnecessarily strict.

The incident marks the second time that the United States has acknowledged killing civilians in its air war against the Islamic State and other militants in Iraq and Syria.

In May, it concluded two children had been killed in a November 2014 air strike in Syria.

In a statement, Lieutenant General Charles Q. Brown of U.S. Air Forces Central Command said, “we regret the unintentional loss of lives and keep those families in our thoughts”. But nearly two months later, military officials in Kabul and at the Pentagon continue to say that they are still working on their investigation, which includes trying to sort out how the USA forces involved missed the well-documented intelligence that identified the building as a civilian hospital. It is investigating a few dozen other reports. Their presence inside the vehicles had not been known, Ryder said, at the time the attack was authorized.

“The vehicle pulled up to the checkpoint, was there for a while”.

“Post-strike imagery analysis of onboard weapons system video footage indicated that four additional personnel whose status was unknown, and previously undetected, exited the vehicles after the aircrews had released weapons on the target and immediately before the weapons impacted the area”, according to findings released Friday. The aid group says the attack killed at least thirty people, including 13 staff members, 10 patients and seven others who are still awaiting identification.

“Video footage review indicates the aircrew had no opportunity to detect the presence of the likely civilians in the target area prior to weapons impact”, the investigation found. “Our goal is to defeat Daesh, a terrorist organization that continuously wraps itself around the population, and we do everything we can to prevent unintended deaths or injuries to non-combatants”, he said.

To date, there are now a total of six civilian casualties that have likely been killed in coalition strikes, Ryder said.