U.S. Airstrikes on ISIS Have Killed Hundreds, Maybe Thousands of Civilians
The number of civilians killed in American-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria spiked this year, as efforts to retake Islamic State strongholds intensified and as some procedures for approving airstrikes were changed. Data compiled by Airwars, a nonprofit group that tracks reports of civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria, showed a significant jump in the […]Sarah Almukhtar writes for The New York Times:
The number of civilians killed in American-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria spiked this year, as efforts to retake Islamic State strongholds intensified and as some procedures for approving airstrikes were changed.
Data compiled by Airwars, a nonprofit group that tracks reports of civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria, showed a significant jump in the number of reported deaths in the first three months of 2017.
The military recently confirmed that American-led airstrikes had been responsible for at least 352 civilian deaths since the start of the war against the Islamic State. But Airwars estimated that the total was eight times higher. The group found that at least 3,100 civilians were killed in American-led airstrikes from August 2014 to March 2017.
