Pentagon confirms 64 civilians killed in US airstrikes in Syria & IRAQ in past 10 months

Pentagon mengesahkan 64 orang awam terbunuh dalam serangan udara Amerika Syarikat di Syria & IRAQ pada 10 bulan yg lalu. Tentera Amerika Syarikat telah mengeluarkan penilaiannya korban awam dalam serangan udara Amerika Syarikat di IRAQ dan Syria sejak 10 bulan yg lalu. Data rasmi menunjukkan 64 orang terbunuh dan 8 lagi cedera dalam 24 serangan berasingan sejak November 2015. ‘Dalam setiap kes yg dikeluarkan hari ini, penilaian yg ditentukan bahawa walaupun segala langkah yg dilaksanakan telah diambil & serangan dipatuhi undang2 konflik bersenjata, korban awam malangnya telah berlaku,’ Kolonel John Thomas, jurucakap Pusat Pemerintah Amerika Syarikat, dalam satu kenyataan. Mengurangkan korban awam kekal sebagai "komponen utama" dpd anti-IS (Negara Islam, yg sebelum ini ISIS/ISIL) kempen udara di Syria & IRAQ, tentera ditekankan, mengakui beberapa serangan maut yg dipersalahkan atas gabungan yg diketuai Amerika Syarikat. Sebagai contoh, menurut satu kenyataan yg dibuat pada 20 November tahun lepas, 5 orang awam terbunuh berhampiran Dayr Az Zawr, Syria timur, apabila mereka kebetulan berada di kawasan sasaran serangan udara Amerika Syarikat. Sebanyak 10 orang awam terbunuh dalam serangan pada 5 Mac, berhampiran Mosul, utara IRAQ, apabila gabungan yg diketuai Amerika Syarikat mensasarkan pengganas "kemudahan pengeluaran senjata," kata kenyataan itu. "Kami telah memohon pengajaran untuk mengurangkan kemungkinan korban awam masa depan," kata Thomas. Pentagon confirms 64 civilians killed in US airstrikes in Syria & Iraq in past 10 months The US military has released its assessment of civilian casualties in US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria over the past 10 months. Official data suggest 64 people were killed and eight more injured in 24 separate strikes since November 2015. “In each of the cases released today, the assessment determined that although all feasible precautions were taken and strikes complied with laws of armed conflict, civilian casualties unfortunately did occur,” Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for US Central Command, said in a statement. Mitigating civilian casualties remains a “key component” of the anti-IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS/ISIL) air campaign in Syria and Iraq, the military emphasized, acknowledging a handful of deadly strikes which were blamed on the US-led coalition. For instance, according to a statement made on November 20 last year, five civilians were killed near Dayr Az Zawr, eastern Syria, when they happened to be in the target area of a US air strike. A further 10 civilians were killed in a strike on March 5, near Mosul, northern Iraq, when the US-led coalition targeted a terrorist “weapons production facility,” the statement added. “We’ve applied lessons learned to reduce the likelihood of future civilian casualties,” Thomas said. The latest information does not include an investigation into a coalition air strike in mid-July near Manbij, in Syria's Aleppo Governorate, which according to some reports killed dozens of civilians. The military said that investigation is nearing completion. Meanwhile, Major Josh Jacques, a spokesman for the US Central Command stated that the latest figures bring the total civilian death toll in the US anti-terrorist campaign to 119 civilians since the air strikes began in 2014. Washington’s assessment contradicts figures released late last month by Amnesty International which claimed that at least 300 civilians were killed in just 11 airstrikes conducted by the US-led coalition in Syria alone. “We fear the US-led coalition is significantly underestimating the harm caused to civilians in its operations in Syria,” said Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Director for Research at Amnesty International’s Beirut regional office, at the time. “The fact they admitted from 24 to 60+ deaths in both Iraq as well as Syria indicates that they’re not precise in their targeting of Islamic State,” Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire told RT. The official acknowledgment of civilian casualties shows that “the war is not receding, but in fact escalating,” Azikiwe said. The moment for publishing the figures was well thought out by the Pentagon, since “people have been preoccupied with the national presidential elections, where these issues were not discussed at all,” he added. An American-led intervention in Iraq started on June 15, 2014, when President Barack Obama ordered US forces to be dispatched to the region in response to highly successful offensives in Iraq conducted by IS terrorists. In September 2014, without any permission from Damascus, the United States and its allies began to strike targets inside Syria . . . READ MORE: Pentagon confirms 64 civilians killed in US airstrikes in Syria & IRAQ in past 10 months http://on.rt.com/7uj3