Led strikes in Iraq, Syria killed many civilians

At the same time, Airwars examined 118 airstrikes over a period of six months and identified that 52 of those strikes “warrant urgent investigation”, as the team believes there are strong indications of civilian deaths, according to multiple, reliable sources, from these attacks, reported the Guardian.

Airwars has called on the US-led coaltion for greater transparency and accountability from coalition members, since each is individually liable for any civilian deaths or injuries it causes.

The Pentagon has acknowledged only two civilian deaths as a result of the airstrikes, tied to a November 2014 bombing in Syria it says “likely” killed two girls.

The coalition made no immediate comment on the report.

“We expect that the numbers will continue to increase, probably not as dramatically as we experienced last year, but IS, Syria and Iraq and this battlefield are still attractive for young people from Germany who want to become jihadists”. To date, the coalition has launched more than 5,800 air strikes in both countries.

According to earlier reports by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – which relies on a network of local activists – at least 173 civilians, including over 50 children, have so far died in airstrikes carried out by the U.S. and its allies in Syria.

Islamic State (IS) has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and has killed or driven away Shi’ite Muslims, Christians and other groups that do not share their radical version of Sunni Islam. “The coalition confirms that it carried out the strike at Hawijah, though a senior commander later insisted that only a “fairly small weapon” had been used in the attack – and that any responsibility for civilian deaths “rests squarely on Daesh.’ However on June 24th the Pentagon announced a formal inquiry into what it now views as ‘credible” claims of civilian deaths”. “In areas like Bayji, it is important to note that coalition forces have implemented significant mitigation measures within the targeting process and during the conduct of operations to reduce the potential of civilian casualties and collateral damage”, said Col. Michael Indovina, CJTF-OIR public affairs spokesman.

In Iraq, the US-led coalition includes France, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, Australia, Denmark and Canada. Airwars quotes the group as saying that the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad has killed 4,879 civilians “mostly in indiscriminate airstrikes”.

Caption: A plume of smoke rises after an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State group positions in an eastern neighborhood of Ramadi, Iraq, May 9, 2015.

Addressing this information gap, the monitoring group I head up, Airwars, has examined all known claims of civilian deaths during the a year ago.

His speech Monday marked the anniversary of the fall of Sinjar to the Islamic State group, which forced tens of thousands of people from Iraq’s Yazidi minority to flee into the mountains. “We take every allegation of civilian casualties seriously”, he said.