The US military said to have covered up several air strikes carried out in Syria in 2019 which allegedly killed 64 women and children, potentially committing a war crime in the fight against the Islamic State.
According to the New York Times, the two back-to-back airstrikes near Baghuz were ordered by a classified American special operations unit tasked with ground operations in Syria.
For the first time this week, the US Central Command, which oversaw US air operations in Syria, acknowledged and justified the strikes.
In a statement that was issued on Saturday, Central Command reiterated its account to the newspaper that the strikes killed 80 people, including 16 Islamic State militants and four civilians. The military stated that it was uncertain whether the other 60 people were civilians or militia group members due to the possibility of women and children among them.
On Saturday, the military stated that the strikes were ‘legitimate self-defense,’ proportional, and that ‘appropriate steps were taken to rule out the presence of civilians.’
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