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Published

June 27, 2017

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Airwars Staff

On the evening of March 16th 2017, US forces repeatedly struck a mosque complex near al-Jinah, located in Aleppo governorate along the border with Idlib. Local civil defense reported that at least 38 bodies had been recovered. Investigations by Human Rights Watch, Bellingcat and Forensic Architecture all concluded that not only had the US hit a mosque – which it at first denied – but also that a significant number of civilians had died.

On June 7th Brigadier General Paul Bontrager, deputy director of operations at CENTCOM, briefed an invited group of reporters. Bontrager insisted that only one civilian was killed, a person of “small stature’ – most likely a child. The death of the one civilian was approved beforehand as proportional and the strike was considered legal, said Bontrager. This, despite multiple failures to identify religious structures in the area before attacking.

To date no version of the investigation Bontrager summarized has been released. The transcript of his briefing — the only official documentation of the American investigation into al-Jinah – has also not been posted publicly. Public knowledge of the investigation consists of what Pentagon reporters chose to include in their coverage. Airwars was invited on the June 7th call and has received permission to post the transcript in its entirety, which we do so here in the interests of public accountability.

“This should not be the end of this investigation, and the Pentagon should release much more detail about what it knows,” Ole Salvang, deputy emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, told Airwars after the briefing.

BEGIN:

Presenters:  Captain Jeff Davis, Director, Defense Press Office; Colonel John Thomas, Director, Public Affairs, Central Command; Army Brigadier General Paul Bontrager, Deputy Director for Operations, U.S. Central Command

June 7, 2017

Department of Defense Off-Camera Press Briefing by Brigadier General Bontrager

CAPTAIN JEFF DAVIS:  Hi.  Good morning, everybody.

And we’re here at the Pentagon, going to be joined here by General Bontrager, who will walk us through this.  We’re at the Pentagon here today about — what do we have? — a couple dozen reporters here that are covering us.

So today, we’re going to be joined by U.S. Army Brigadier General Paul Bontrager — B-O-N-T-R-A-G-E-R.  He currently serves as the deputy director for operations, the deputy J-3, at the U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa.

He will be discussing the command investigation into a U.S. airstrike that took place March 16th near Aleppo, Syria.  After the general’s opening statement, we’ll pause and allow some questions here from this group.

General Bontrager, we’ll turn it over to you.

SPEAKER:  Hey, this is (inaudible) in Tampa.

Good after — good morning.  Thanks for attending today’s discussion about the investigation.  I want to offer a few scene-setting remarks and then we’ll turn it over to the investigating officer for his description of what he found.  And then we’ll take questions.  We’ve got about 45 minutes set aside for the discussion.

We are on the record for the investigating officer.  My words right now are on background, so we don’t confuse what I say in your reporting with what the investigating officer says on the record.  His comments take precedence over mine.

About this investigation, each case is unique.  We investigate the unique circumstances of each case, and then we take the findings of each case and seek to apply what we can learn more broadly with the goal of continuous improvement.

So, you’re going to be hearing conclusions from the investigating officer about what happened and recommendations for the future.  To make sure we’re all talking about the same strike, it was March 16th, 2017 in Syria.  This is the investigation that involved the photo that you should have in front of you, where we reported initially that we struck close to a mosque.  This is a case where our bombs hit an Al Qaida meeting in the building next to that mosque.

One more thing I know the investigating officer will discuss and answer your questions about, what it is that we mean when we say we hold ourselves to the highest standards.  This investigation is part of us being unsparing in our self-critique of whether we are meeting the highest standards.

In this case, I’ll tell you right up front that the investigation was an important event, and this investigation highlighted things we can do better.  Specific improvements have stemmed from this investigation.  Things have been improved because of the investigation report.

Commanders have used this information from this investigation to initiate some remedial actions and process reviews to ensure we are meeting the highest standards.  All of the recommendations the investigating officer brings up and shares with you today have already been considered and addressed in command channels.

One more aside.  I can tell you that we have seriously reviewed information from a Human Rights Watch report that came out recently concerning this strike, and we used it to further assess if we could learn from their conclusions and their research.

As always, the investigating officer is not in a position to discuss policy.  His role here today to keep us — to keep us all focused, is to discuss the specifics about what happened in this case and what we might be able to do continuously to improve the processes for ensuring that target engagement authority has the best, most complete information available at the rights times to enable the right decisions.

You’ll hear reference to what we believe are common terms for you, this group of reports, like dynamic versus deliberate strikes, and target engagement authority.  But if you need to ask for an explanation of those terms, feel free to ask.

With that, the next voice you’ll hear is the investigating officer, Brigadier General Paul Bontrager.

BRIGADIER GENERAL PAUL BONTRAGER:  Okay, good morning.

I am U.S. Army Brigadier General Paul Bontrager.  And I was appointed as the investigating officer for this investigation, following the U.S. airstrike in al-Jinah, Aleppo province, Syria on March 16th of this year.

Joining me on the investigation were military officers and civilian specialists who assisted me as subject-matter experts in intelligence, targeting, joint fires, and legal matters.  None of us were involved in the strike or the decisions leading up to the strike.

As the Army Regulation 15-6 investigating officer per the appointing order, it was the role of our team to gather information surrounding the facts of the al-Jinah strike, analyze those facts, and provide recommendations to the commander.

As always, there are ways to improve the strike processes and base our investigation.  This is what we found in this case.  Although we did not have access to the scene, the investigative team interviewed dozens of people.  We reviewed all available video and images, operational reports, and intelligence reports associated with the strike, while researching all regulations, standing operating procedures, commander’s guidance and other pertinent information.

We simply were following every bit of information to see where it led, leaving no stone unturned.  We finalized our report findings and recommendations, and now that it is complete, we are following through with our promise to be open and transparent, which leads us to this media opportunity today.

We want to tell you what we can about what we found in the investigation, with the exception of classified information, of course.

Okay?  Now, I’ll take a few moments to summarize the facts, details and findings of the investigation.

On the afternoon of March 14th, 2017, intelligence indicated that Al Qaida and Syrian militants would be attending a meeting with Al Qaida leaders from the region near al-Jinah village, Aleppo province.  On March 15th, our forces received additional intelligence which reinforced the likelihood of a meeting taking place in the immediate future.

On the afternoon of March 16th, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets confirmed reports of a meeting forming in the specific building that intelligence had pointed to previously.  Of note, this is an ungoverned area of Syria that is not in the control of the Assad regime government, nor under the control of any militias that we support in the fight against ISIS.  It is a confirmed and well-known Al Qaida operational area.

Once it was confirmed the meeting was imminent, the dynamic targeting process began with the intent to strike the target building while the Al Qaida meeting was in session.  At that point, a strike cell began working to support the target engagement authority.  The target engagement authority — this is the individual with the authority to approve the strike.  The strike cell took the process for action to ensure all information was made available before the final decision to strike, and of course, that any strike could comply with all laws and regulations.

The strike cell confirmed that the meeting was a valid military target and that the target could be struck proportionally to avoid unnecessary collateral damage.  When the target engagement authority believed he had complete information, he made the decision to conduct a kinetic strike.  The strike came from above by F-15 Strike Eagle aircraft and MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft.

The F-15s dropped 10 bombs on the building and the MQ-9 shot two missiles to strike a target that emerged outside the building.  The munitions penetrated the building and caused superficial damage to adjacent structures.  We are unable to ascertain exactly how many individuals were killed.  We estimate approximately two dozen men attending an Al Qaida meeting were killed in the strike with several injured.

Importantly, this investigation found that the strike complied with operational and legal requirements.  The strike hit an Al Qaida meeting.  We simply found no credible information to discredit the initial intelligence.

GEN. BONTRAGER:  Sadly, we did assess that there was likely one civilian casualty.  Our assessment is due solely to the individual’s stature relative to other fighters attending the meeting.  We believe the individual was a male and through — and though the evidence is not conclusive, he was not a fighter.

There is a possibility he was a civilian.  We are unsure if that person survived, but we do believe that he was injured in the strike at a minimum.

One of the factors we were tasked to explore in this investigation was whether reports of large numbers of civilian casualties were true.  In short, we considered media reports that indicated a large number of civilians were killed, but our investigation did not uncover evidence to support those claims.  We are not aware of large number of civilians being treated in hospitals after the strike.  We are confident this was a meeting of Al Qaida members and leaders.  This was not a meeting of civilians.

Next I will draw your attention to the image that was released to the public after the strike and consider some of the discussion around that photograph.  That picture that I’m told you have there in front of you, shows pretty dramatically that our bombs struck a building between a small building and a larger building that appears to be under construction.  The small building on the left is a small mosque that sustained slight damage.  The larger building on the right is also mostly untouched.  One of the things this image shows us and our investigation validated was that the strike was remarkably precise.

The munitions struck the exact building they were intended to strike and did not cause significant damage to adjacent structures.  And I will avoid classified details, but the effects visible in the photograph are evidence the bombs were appropriately fused to limit collateral damage.  You can see that vehicles parked outside the building are still intact and right side up.  You can see that the mosque was slightly damaged but left standing.  You can see that the adjacent larger building was left mostly untouched as well.  The target, a meeting of Al Qaida, that we aimed for was the only structure that was hit.

To summarize up to this point, those are the basic facts and conclusions of the investigation.  Now, I will talk about our findings and how the investigation shows that there are things we could have done better.  Moving forward, we need to be as hard on ourselves as the situation requires, ensuring we improve in the future, and there were things that did not meet our highest standards.

A concern from the strike is that all the best information did not make it to the target engagement authority at the time he had to make the decision about the strike.  A word here about dynamic versus deliberate targets.  Once a target is deemed a fleeting target, a series of decisions and timelines follow.

Dynamic targets drive immediate actions.  Setting the scene of — seeing the — setting the scene in a certain way creates a lens, for instance, through which intelligence indicators are interpreted and deciding a target is a dynamic target accelerates the process, which sometimes, if not vigilant, can cause a rush to the most obvious answers.

In this case, when the decision to strike was made, the target engagement authority was not made aware that the small building on the left was actually a mosque or that this complex of buildings under construction had, under normal conditions, a general religious purpose.

What we determined afterwards was that the building on the left of the image you have there in front of you was a small mosque in a complex in which a new larger mosque was under construction, more specifically the Omar al-Khatab mosque.  None of the buildings were annotated on our no-strike list as category one facilities, which is a register of entities that must be carefully evaluated before an approval to strike.

GEN. BONTRAGER:  Again, looking at the photo in front of you, you can clearly see — you can clearly see the building that was struck.  And you can see the small mosque to the left.

Now, if you look to the right of the building that was struck, you can see the larger building.  That building is actually attached to the building we struck by a stairwell and a breezeway walkthrough.  These two buildings, the one we struck and the larger building that we did not strike, were both under construction and actually had a religious purpose.

We believe the building we struck was intended to be a school or madrassa, and the larger building a future mosque.  We have a responsibility to identify and characterize no-strike entities as accurately as possible and provide this information to decision-makers in a timely manner.

To summarize, neither the small mosque nor the two buildings under construction were on the category one no-strike list.  The small mosque certainly should’ve been, and I will come back to this point in a moment.

As previously — as previously mentioned, the failure to identify the religious nature of these buildings is a preventable error.  This failure to identify the religious purpose of these buildings led the target engagement authority to make the final determination to strike without knowing all he should have known.  And that is something that we need to make sure does not happen in the future.

Let me reemphasize, the investigation found that at the time of the meeting, the structure hit and the people who were targeted were valid targets because they were engaged in an Al Qaida meeting.  They were using the religious facility for an Al Qaida meeting.

When that is determined, it is not a difficult process to seek authority to strike a target that is being used at the time for militant purposes.  Since the target engagement authority did not know it was a religious complex, he never invoked the process to remove the category one no-strike protection.

Most frustrating was that some of the intelligence team did know this was a religious complex, but the analysis did not get to the no-strike list nor to the target engagement authority.

A more deliberate pre-strike analysis should have identified that the target was part of a religious compound.  Having that information could have been relevant to the target engagement authority’s decision to strike.

Before engaging a no-strike list entity, there are further approvals that need to be granted.  In this case, the real time use of the meeting place for an Al Qaida meeting would have permitted the strike.  But the target engagement authority should have had all the information needed to make the more informed decision in real time.

Our standards are simply higher than that.  One of our team’s recommendations would require buildings under construction be granted the same protection status as their intended end use.

Finally, a couple more topics.  Our team recommended we pay particular attention to manning associated with shift changes and manning related to our red team of skeptics who play a valuable role in getting to good decisions with agility.

On shift changeovers, the investigation found irregularities that contributed to a lack of situational awareness, knowledge and understanding among the strike cell individuals.  Specifically, important information was not adequately communicated during personnel changeover to the incoming shift.

We also found an imbalance of subspecialties assigned to the strike cell.  They did not have in place to best possible complement of experienced trained people who could have better developed and vetted the information in front of them, even in a — a dynamic strike.

Therefore, we recommended a manpower review be conducted to ensure the right mix of personnel are assigned to the strike cell and are present at the right place at the right time.  I think implied here is an understanding of the desire for us to have the most robust, red team possible process to apply to every strike.  Red team is military speak for experts who are given the challenge of asking the toughest questions, providing a skeptical eye to the analysis as it forms in real time.  This is not a situation where individuals are overly deferential to rank or position.

There is an expectation, rather there is a requirement for anyone to speak up and question any facts, assumptions or decisions at any time throughout the strike process.  Our team believes that a robust red team environment was lacking on the strike floor.  There should have been more questions asked.  We should have — would have given the target engagement authority a better chance to make decisions with full knowledge of the intelligence and information available at the time.  These are not things that we can get wrong as we work to ensure the individuals who make the decisions whether to strike have the best and most complete information in front of them when they need it.  The best red team is an important mechanism to allow us to make the best decisions.

In conclusion, we struck our intended target and — and eliminated several Al-Qaida terrorists.  Though our investigation identified some critical information gaps that contributed to a misinformation and an overall lack of understanding of the situation, we ultimately struck a blow against Al-Qaida.  But that does not excuse us from taking a hard look at what we could do better, particular in terms of process and procedures.  We hold ourselves to a high standard.  We cannot let desire for good results degrade our standards.  We need to get it right and with certainty and we will.  With that, I am happy to take your questions.  And let me add, if I don’t adequately answer your questions, please re-ask them there.  I’m here to provide full visibility as I see it and I don’t — I don’t want — to — be let off the hook on a hard question although I might regret saying that later.

CAPT. DAVIS:  Oh they won’t let you off sir, I assure you.  We’re going to start with Phil Stewart with Reuters.

Q:  Just first of all, you said you interviewed dozens of people.  Were any of those people connected to the — were actually in — in — on the ground at the time?  Or were these all, you know, officials involved in the strike?  And did you speak to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights which has a very different assessment of the people that were killed.  And then lastly, could you give us any information on the individual, this lone individual civilian who was wounded.  How do you know?  Did you see him in a video feed leaving the compound?  How do you know about that lone individual?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  OK, Phil.  So I — (inaudible) — three parts there.  Let me start nugging away at this, if I don’t get it right again please come back and re-ask.  So, the — the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, no, we did not speak to — to anyone there.  We did reach out to the organizations that had published different documents, for example, the Human Rights Watch asking for any information that they had with regard to the strike.  To again, try and get — gather any evidence that was out there and that offer still stands for Human Rights Watch, Syrian Observatory, anybody else who has something we would — we would be — we would welcome.  We would welcome it.  Can you repeat the other parts of the question please?

Q:  Well just on that one point, so did you speak to anybody who was actually on the ground.  You said you spoke to dozens of people.  How do you — how would you characterize those people?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  Right.  So we did not — we did not speak with any — anyone on the ground in Syria except for the — the individuals in the unit that conducted the strike.  We simply didn’t have access to — to anyone in the location of the strike.  So — so the answer to that is a simple no.  We spoke to dozens of people throughout the process — the approval process, the strike cell, as well as — as anyone who had any — any information with regard to the — the intelligence available or the — or what else was available.

Regarding the last part of your question, which I think concerned the lone individual.  Let me be completely clear here, what we — what we saw was a small-in-stature – smaller-in-stature person accompanying an adult, clearly an adult, into the meeting site.  And that alone is what — what we saw that made us call this individual a civilian.

However, it should also be known that this was known to the target engagement authority pre-strike.  He was identified — the T.E.A. — the target engagement authority was aware.  The proportionality assessment was made, and it was still deemed a legal strike.  So with regard to that, the proper authorities were — were consulted.

Q:  And you don’t believe he’s a child?  They aren’t ready to say that.  You think he might have been an adult?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  I frankly don’t know — don’t know who he was.  It was a civilian is how we’re characterizing him.

CAPT. DAVIS:  Okay.  Next to Bill Hennigan, the L.A. Times.  Bill, make sure you speak up.

Q:  Okay.  So, you didn’t talk to anybody on the ground and nobody visited the site.  Is that — that correct, right?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  That is correct, Bill, and that’s common.  It’s a rare thing with strikes like this that we can get on the ground in person, or that we can talk to anybody on the ground is not uncommon at all.

Q:  Can you talk a little bit about what — what you actually did sit through in order to come to the conclusions that you did?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  Yes, Bill, so we — we sifted through every — from the initial time when intelligence was made available about the strike, we sifted through every bit of e-mail, documents, chat screens.  It was as comprehensive as we could.  There was nothing that was possible to be presented that we did not look at.  We looked at all available video over the — that was available considering this target.

This was a fairly quick-turn target once the — the events, once it was determined dynamic.  And then it was over very rapidly as well.  So, the individuals involved in it, it was both in-country forward and elsewhere with the strike cell.  Those are the folks we — we focused on with regard to determining what information was available at the time and whether or not the target engagement authority had that information.

Q:  That strike cell is in — is that in Erbil or Syria?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  The strike cell is the cell that had the responsibility for conducting the strike in this situation.  And they’re primary role is to inform the target engagement authority.

Q:  Where — where — is it in-country?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  I don’t believe that’s in the scope of what I’m going to discuss today.

Q:  Okay.  So — so if — and you also mentioned that there was a shift changeover.  So approximately how long did this process take — take through?  And also, on top of that, you know, there was — last year, we had a strike where Syrian forces were accidentally hit because of a changeover, because information did not make its way from one — one staff to the next.

Were there any learned lessons that were applicable in this particular incident?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  So, this — this particular event took place over days, as I said — three days total.  Once the event itself, the dynamic strike process began, that’s when it was a matter of hours and that’s when it was a very quick turn.  And during that process, there were a couple of key individuals that swapped out.  That’s what I’m talking about with regard to shifts — shift-change.

It wasn’t like a full-scale, you know, group of people got up and left and a new group came in.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  He’s talking about certain — certain folks that swapped out and again, we’re being — maybe being unfairly critical of ourselves, but they simply could have done a better job passing information from one individual to the next.

Q:  And the learned lesson from that Syria strike last year?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  All other strikes and investigations inform our processes.  This is — this is how up to this point we’re able to have a remarkably high amount of success.  I mean, literally thousands of strikes with a tremendously small percentage of strikes that go poorly.  So any other investigation definitely informed the process up to this point.

However, every — every process, every event is unique and I only know the particulars about this particular one right here.

Q:  Okay.  You said that there were members on the team that perhaps knew that this was — could be on the no-strike list.  And that that information did not find its way to the right authority.  Was there anybody — was there any — has anybody been reprimanded or punished as a result of this oversight?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  So, let me go back and clarify something.  None of these buildings — the small mosque, the — the building we struck, or the larger mosque under construction — none of them were on the no-strike list.  What we’re saying is that there were people in the process that had — that had identified that the small mosque as a mosque.  That mosque should have been put on the no-strike list, but it wasn’t.

Let me be clear also that there was no requirement to address the — the status of that small mosque because it was not to be struck.  We weren’t — there was never a plan to strike it.  So that — that was fine.  The bottom line is it should have been on the list and it wasn’t on the list.

Regarding the building that was struck and the larger mosque, the one — the building under construction, by letter of the law, there’s no requirement that they had to be on the list as well, because they were not — they were not completed structures.

What we’re saying is — common sense, and in fact practice up to this point, we have had times similar to this where somebody was savvy enough to say this might be a religious structure; let’s treat it as a cat-1 no-strike structure, even though it’s not on the list.  And they would have pushed it up higher for authority.

The problem that we have with this one is there were people that saw the mosque, the small mosque, didn’t add it to the list immediately when they should have.  And there were other people that looked at the building to be struck and the building to the right of it, the larger building, with skepticism and thinking this might be religious in nature, and they didn’t raise that concern either.

So the bottom line — and that — and that ultimately was one of our recommendations.  And that was we believe, and that is a change that is being codified in regulation, that anytime a structure, even under construction, is deemed to possibly have a no-strike category of protection, it immediately gets that level of protection.  You don’t wait until something is done and that sort of thing.

So that is — that is an area that we think we can do better.  And again, we’re — I can’t speak to whether or not it would have changed the outcome.  What I can speak to is the information that was available to the target engagement authority was not as complete as it could have been.  And we need — those individuals, we need to give them every benefit with regard to every bit of information that is available and we simply did not do that in this case.

Q:  So there were no letters of reprimand or any punishments doled out?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  So, I’m — I’m glad this came up because I did not include this in my opening statement.  But — but I wanted to address it.  And that is also that there was no negligence found at any part of this investigation.  And again, this is — this is not some — this is not an investigation that we just breezed through.

We sifted through every detail.  There was not — there was no negligence found.  There was no, sort of, anything malicious at all that could be determined.  So none of our recommendations reflected that anyone should receive any sort of reprimand.

That being said, that’s not our decision anyhow.  It is a command decision and whether or not somebody was reprimanded is — is — is again not for me to say.

Q:  (inaudible) — just lastly — (inaudible) — was there any HVIs there at the strike?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  What we know with certainty is this was an Al Qaida meeting and there were Al Qaida regional leaders present.

Q:  Thank you.

CAPT. DAVIS:  Next to Tara Copp, Stars and Stripes.

Q:  Hello.  (inaudible) — most of my questions, but if a madrassa — if the adjoining buildings had been known as a madrassa, potentially a school, that would have also put them on the cat 1 list.  Is that correct?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  You’re — you are exactly right, Tara.  That would have afforded them cat 1 no-strike protection.

Q:  OK.  I actually — (inaudible) — did actually ask most of the questions that I had.

CAPT. DAVIS:  Okay.  We’ll go to Lucas Tomlinson, FOX news.

Q:  General, knowing everything that you know now, would you still have conducted the strike?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  Well, Lucas, that is a hypothetical that I — I don’t think is — I’m in a position to — to answer.

Q:  Is it?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  What I can speak to — did you have another question?

Q:  Is it a hypothetical?  Knowing what you know now, would you go back and do the strike at the same time, same place using the same assets?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  Lucas, yeah, that’s — were I a target engagement authority, I think that would be a more appropriate role for me to answer.  I was not the target engagement authority.  I did not have the real time information flowing in as it — as it was coming in.  I can say with all certainty that at the time of the strike, before the strike, at the time of the strike and now, it remains a valid military target and it remains a — a legal strike.

Q:  So you would do it again, or the targeters would do it again if presented the opportunity at that time and place?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  I simply do not — do not — I’m not in position to answer that question, Lucas.

Q:  And lastly, was striking this target, considering it was Al Qaida regional leaders, was it worth it given the proximity to these other religious structures?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  So, Lucas, I think you’re talking with regard to proportionality and it was certainly determined a proportional strike with regard to — to the Al Qaida meeting that was in place.  And again, let’s go back to review what we had, which was a — credible intelligence of this Al Qaida meeting with — with leaders present.  And if you can imagine what that means with regard to pay-off — possible pay-off and a blow to Al Qaida in the area.  It would possibly be significant and that was the mindset moving forward that day.

Q:  Thank you very much.

Q:  Can I jump in real quick?

CAPT. DAVIS:  Sure.

Q:  Just as a follow on that.  If the buildings would’ve been on a do-not-strike list, how is it still considered a legal strike now, just to clarify?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  OK.  A very — very relevant question to — and I’ll try and explain that.  So, the fact that something is on the no-strike list does not mean that it cannot be struck, it just means that it requires a different process and a different approval.

So, any structure, madrassa, or other — or any other structure at all, if it’s being used for a military purpose can be struck.  It is a — it can be a legal target to strike.  It simply has to go to a different level for approval authority.

And that — that did not happen in this — in this instance.

CAPT. DAVIS:  We’ll go to T.M. Gibbons-Neff, Washington Post.

Q:  Thanks for doing this, General.   First question, were there any non-DOD assets involved in the targeting of this meeting?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  This was a solely and completely DOD strike, T.M.

Q:  Got it.  And — and we talked a lot about accountability.  But who exactly would be held accountable?  Which command was this?

Was it an Air Force strike?  Was it a special operations strike?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  T.M., this — this was in fact a — a special operations task force with responsibility in that — in that region.

Q:  Got it.  And last question, kind of regarding this shift changeover and people aware of that it might have been a mosque.  It just sounds like, with everything that you’re saying, that there was no clear pattern of life established on this structure before it was struck.  Is that kind of what you’re talking about by being the cutting corners?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  So, the intelligence that — that — that brought us to the point of — of considering the strike, and then the — the surveillance that was placed over the — the building location gave the team a high level of confidence that knew — they knew precisely who was in the building and what the target consisted of.  So — so, I would say that the pattern of life was certainly suitably established prior to this strike.

CAPT. DAVIS:  Next to Lolita Baldor, Associated Press.

Q:  General, I just wanted to make sure you — other than this one smaller-in-stature person, do you have a high degree of confidence that the only people killed or injure were al-Qaida members or a — how high of a confidence are you that those who were killed were injured were al-Qaida members?  And I guess, just to — and — and how do you reach that conclusion if other groups suggest they were not?

And you weren’t able to talk to anyone on the ground.  How certain can you be that they were all al-Qaida members?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  So, so, Lita, in — in a — I’ll — I’ll just have to come back to the — the intelligence that was available to us before the strike, at the time of the strike, and post strike.  And every effort we made to gather evidence, talking to anybody who anything to provide with regard to this — to this strike.

And we’ve simply found no — zero credible evidence to discredit the intelligence.  And that includes additional intelligence collected post-strike regarding the strike itself.

CAPT. DAVIS:  OK, Nancy Youssef, Buzzfeed.

Q:  You mentioned that there were a series of recommendations.  Can you tell us how many recommendations there were?  Who those recommendations go to?  And who — and if — who determines whether to follow through on them?  And what happens if they’re not followed through?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  So Nancy, the — the recommendations go to the — the commander of the — of the unit that — that assigned me to do this investigation.  And it is completely his responsibility to determine which — which recommendations to follow and to follow up to make sure that they are — they are implemented.

And the — and I’ll run down a brief summary of the findings that I — I — I mentioned in my earlier dialogue.  There was the overarching problem of incomplete information flow to the target engagement authority.  There was the problem that we found of individuals swapping duties in the strike cell without an adequate hand-off of available information as well there.

There was the category one no-strike list issue, where individuals had noticed that the — there was a small mosque not on the strike — no-strike list and did not immediately add it.  And there was other individuals that suspected that this was a religious compound under construction and they didn’t bring up somewhat of a common sense approach of should this be considered as a cat 1 structure.  So that was another significant thing that we found.

There was the manning review.  There was a couple positions that, and again we are — we are being somewhat harsh on ourselves, but there were people that we thought could have been more experienced and — and could have been more emboldened with regard to their duties in the strike cell.   So that’s — that’s something else that we pointed out.

And the last — the last point was about the overall environment — the climate in the strike cell has got to have — it has to be almost an argumentative environment where folks are — are pointing out things and regardless of rank, they’re — they’re being critical of — of each other.

So — so those are the — the — the main parts and I would — and to the best of my knowledge having talked to the commander, I believe each and every one of those has been acted on in a positive way.  But if I can go back, all the things I just talked about with regard to passing of information and not being bold enough to speak up and that sort of thing, that’s what we’re talking about here.  This is not a place where we found any negligence on any individual or group of individuals.

Q:  What unit is that?  And how long were they in charge of the strike operations in Syria?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  I’m sorry.  Can you repeat the question please.

Q:  Which unit did this — did this report go to?  Or who requested it?  And how long are they in charge of such operations?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  So, this is a special operations task force and they are in charge of these operations throughout several theaters forever.

Q:  (inaudible) — but is it a specific unit that like a brigade or a battalion?  Or is it — does it transcend that?  That’s what I’m trying to understand.

GEN. BONTRAGER:  Yes.  You’re right.  It transcends that.  It is a special operation task force.

Q:  And then you mentioned regional leaders that were targeted.  Can you give us any more specifics?  Did they know the names of the people who were there?  Or was it a belief that a group of regional leaders were there?  And when you say “regional,”  what does that mean?  What kind of responsibility do they have within Al Qaida?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  Yeah, right.  And that’s sort of specific — specific parts of the intelligence that we simply can’t talk about.  But very confident in the intelligence that was available at the time.

SPEAKER:  So we’ve got time for one or two more questions.

CAPT. DAVIS:  Yeah, we’ve got a couple of follow ups.

First from Tara Copp.

(CROSSTALK)

CAPT. DAVIS:  You’re good.

And next from T.M. Gibbons-Neff.

Q:  Yes, back to the special operations task force for just a few minutes.  I assume that that’s JSOC.  Did the engagement or the approval for this engagement ever leave that task force?  As in, did anyone else in CENTCOM review the information prior to the strike?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  So, the — the approval process worked correctly when we’re talking about the level that it went to, except for the removal of the no-strike protection.  That’s one that should have — that should have been elevated that wasn’t.

Other than that, everything was done at the correct level.

Q:  And that level was within the task force?

GEN. BONTRAGER:  It was within the strike cell at the appropriate level.

CAPT. DAVIS:  All right.  I just wanted to check with the operator to make sure we didn’t have anyone dial in from out of town that wanted to ask anything.

OPERATOR:  If you would like to ask a question, please press star-one.  One moment.

CAPT. DAVIS:  We may not have anybody there.

(CROSSTALK)

CAPT. DAVIS:  Yeah, well, I think CENTCOM might have had someone dial in from down there.  But I don’t think we have anybody in the category, but just checking.

Okay.  Last call for anyone else.

General, thank you for your time in doing this.  I know (inaudible) down at CENTCOM will be available for any follow ups you may have.

Thanks, everybody.

-END-

▲ The Pentagon issued this photograph to demonstrate, it claimed, that it had not bombed a mosque. Forensic Architecture says the opposite is true

Published

June 8, 2017

Written by

Airwars Staff

The battle involving Iraqi and US-led Coalition forces against the so-called Islamic State (ISIL) in west Mosul’s Old City poses a considerable threat to civilians and civilian objects, international humanitarian and human rights organizations said today. All warring parties should cease using explosive weapons with wide area effects and inherently indiscriminate weapons in densely populated west Mosul. ISIL’s unlawful use of civilians as “human shields” and the difficulty of identifying civilians in buildings increases the risk of civilian casualties.

The United Nations has estimated that 200,000 civilians remain in the two-square-kilometer area in west Mosul’s Old City, which Iraqi and US-led coalition forces are encircling in preparation for the battle there.

“More than 12,000 munitions were used by the US-led Coalition at Mosul between March and May alone, according to official data – comprising airstrikes, rocket and artillery salvos, mortar attacks and helicopter actions. In addition, thousands more munitions were released by Iraqi air and ground forces – at times with little apparent discrimination. This despite the city still containing hundreds of thousands of trapped civilians,” says Airwars Director Chris Woods.

“The result of this ferocious bombardment on a densely populated city has been inevitable – with thousands of Moslawis reported killed in Coalition, Iraqi government and ISIL actions. Determining responsibility is proving particularly challenging, given the high number of munitions involved. We urge both the Coalition and Iraqi forces imediately to end the use of wide area effect and indiscriminate munitions in Mosul, in order to save lives.”

The groups expressing concern are: Airwars; Amnesty International; Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC); Human Rights First; Human Rights Watch, the International Network on Explosive Weapons (INEW), and War Child.

‘Disproportionate military attacks’

On May 25, 2017, anti-ISIL forces dropped leaflets urging civilians to immediately leave areas under ISIL control. Anti-ISIL forces should take all feasible precautions to minimize harm when carrying out attacks and ensure that civilians can safely evacuate the Old City and get humanitarian assistance both inside and outside the besieged area. With the offensive to take west Mosul entering its 109th day, the situation for civilians trapped there is growing increasingly perilous. Those fleeing Mosul have told humanitarian and human rights organizations that markets are being emptied of food, with civilians subsisting on little more than wheat and rainwater.

In mid-February, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) supported by the US-led coalition, known as the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), began the offensive to retake west Mosul, a densely populated set of urban neighborhoods.

Rising civilian casualties from aerial operations have heightened concerns regarding coalition and Iraqi forces’ use of airstrikes. The use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects such as air-dropped bombs of 500lbs and above, which have been used in the context of the operation, in densely populated civilian areas of western Mosul may be resulting in civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects that is excessive to the anticipated military objectives of the strikes. Such disproportionate military attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Iraqi forces have also been launching locally fabricated rockets, commonly known as improvised rocket-assisted munitions (IRAMs), into west Mosul. Images published by media outlets and the US military also depict US forces and Iraqi forces firing mortars and unguided artillery rockets into western Mosul. Both of these weapons are inaccurate and can be unlawfully indiscriminate if used in heavily populated areas.

The difficulty of detecting civilians in the packed city, even with advanced targeting systems and continuous observation, make it difficult to determine accurately the number of civilians occupying a target area prior to approving strikes. The dangers are increased by ISIL’s use of civilians as “human shields,” which is a war crime.

Dozens of newly displaced people from west Mosul, including the Old City, have told humanitarian and human rights organizations that ISIL fighters forced them and their families to move with them up to three times, packing large numbers of families into small neighborhoods still under their control. They witnessed fighters summarily killing dozens of men as punishment as they and their families tried to flee ISIL control. They also saw ISIL fighters fire on groups of civilians as they fled; and some saw fleeing civilians shot and killed.

As the fighting intensifies and ISIL increases its use of civilians as shields, anti-ISIL forces should use all available means to verify the presence and location of civilians in the immediate vicinity of any fighters or military objectives targeted. In December 2016, US forces made procedural changes in its targeting that may increase the likelihood of civilian casualties.

All parties to the conflict are prohibited under the laws of war from conducting deliberate attacks against civilians or civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate, or disproportionate attacks. Indiscriminate attacks are attacks that strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. An attack is disproportionate if it may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian objects that would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the attack.

Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent – that is, deliberately or recklessly – are responsible for war crimes. Individuals also may be held criminally liable for attempting to commit a war crime, as well as assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime.

The laws of war require that the parties to a conflict take constant care during military operations to spare the civilian population and to “take all feasible precautions” to avoid or minimize the incidental loss of civilian life and damage to civilian objects. When used in populated areas, munitions with large payloads of high explosives can have a wide-area destructive effect, and it is not possible when using them to distinguish adequately between civilians and combatants, almost inevitably resulting in civilian casualties.

Weapons such as mortars and multi-barrel rocket launchers when firing unguided munitions and IRAMs are fundamentally inaccurate. This can make discriminating between civilians and combatants during an attack on a densely populated area virtually impossible. Human rights and humanitarian organizations and journalists have documented the use by Iraqi forces of IRAMs that lack the ability to be aimed beyond a basic orientation toward the target and are inherently indiscriminate.

Mortars and multi-barrel rocket launchers firing unguided munitions used by anti-ISIL forces can be aimed and adjusted by an observer, but are area-fire weapons and, when used in densely populated areas, are prone to unlawful indiscriminate use. Iraqi and US-led coalition forces should avoid all use of these weapons in the densely populated Old City of west Mosul.

Signatories: Airwars Amnesty International Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) Human Rights First Human Rights Watch International Network on Explosive Weapons War Child

Fundraising Update

We have had a good start to our Airwars public appeal for $50,000 to help us improve our research and advocacy work, at a time of escalating civilian deaths. But we still have a big hill to climb. If you can, please donate. And also do please share our GoFundMe page as widely as possible witrh your social networks.

Published

May 5, 2017

Written by

Airwars Staff

Shihab Halep is the nom de plume of one of Airwars’ Syrian researchers, now based in Turkey. Over the past year Shihab has helped Airwars document hundreds of alleged Russian casualty events. Originally from Aleppo and now a refugee, Shihab marks the 1,000th day of Coalition airstrikes with his personal reflections on the devastating impact that airstrikes and shelling can have on civilians in Syria.

The night the University Entrance Exam results were announced in my hometown, Aleppo, my family and friends came down to our flat in Seif Al-Dawla to say congratulations and have some sweets and special drinks we use when celebrating such milestones. I was the first one in my family to go to an engineering school, so my family was very excited and happy despite the tough time we were having in Aleppo in general.

Suddenly, loud explosions were heard from afar, and our guests decided to head home to make sure their beloved families were safe. Gradually, the noises got nearer to the point we felt our flat shaking – and suddenly we were under fire [from the regime]. In the middle of the night we were forced to leave our flat with nothing on us but the clothes we were wearing, though we were lucky as we were dressed up since we were supposed to be celebrating.

Our flat was on the highway, so we decided to move towards the home of my uncle. Suddenly, mortar shells started falling around us. It’s a horrifying experience when you hear the whistle of the shell, a silence for a second or two which feels like a lifetime, and then an explosion, I looked around, my family is still alive, and the same thing keeps repeating. It was too late for us to go back to our flat, and we couldn’t march forward. There was an empty, isolated building nearby, so we decided to hide inside it as it was the best shelter.

Shihab filmed the damage to his family home, in his last moments before becoming a refugee

‘My baby nephew was crying’

My nephew, who was a couple of months old, was crying but we had to flee with nothing on us and weren’t able to provide him with any food. We stayed there until the morning and when the shelling stopped, we quickly went back home to find it partially destroyed and lots of shrapnel and holes everywhere. We tried to quickly grab a few things, mostly food for my nephew, and ran to another shelter.

By this time, helicopters started striking the neighbourhood and we doubted if we were going to make it out alive. Somehow, we did. September 2013 was the last time I saw our flat and our neighbourhood.

Though I couldn’t graduate in Aleppo, I continued studying in Turkey and did not give up on my education. Now as a researcher for Airwars, I am always reminded of my experience fleeing home, especially when I see videos and photos of children in Raqqa and other parts of Syria where civilians are forced to flee. Only the lucky ones make it. The look of those children who are not able to go to school anymore is pretty much the same one I had when I was forced to leave my neighbourhood for the final time.

The schools in Syria all look identical, so when I see schools in Raqqa province being struck and destroyed – like the one in Mansoura on March 21st – I get some flashback and remember my own school in Aleppo. These poor students could have been me or my classmates. We all had dreams and parents who love us. What’s worse, when I escaped Aleppo with my family, I knew where I was going. These civilians don’t. There have been reports that the Euphrates Dam might collapse, which imposes more pressure and adds to the struggle the civilians go through on a daily basis. Airstrikes do not differentiate between babies, elderly or extremists. Death is everywhere and poor civilians are paying a heavy price.

Those feelings are universal, being forced to leave home not knowing if you’d go back at all. I was lucky, I made it to Turkey and managed to continue studying, but civilians in Raqqa are not lucky. They are living under extremist terrorists and can’t escape, while they might die at any minute in airstrikes. Their situation is like mine, only I had an escape route. They do not.

▲ The aftermath of raids on Zee Kaar school and the Ibn Khaldoun of the city of Raqqa, May 12th 2016 (via RBSS)

Published

May 5, 2017

Written by

Airwars Staff

A version of this article is published by Bellingcat.

Christiaan Triebert is Airwars’ volunteer geolocator, helping us to determine coordinates for civilian casualty incidents. As an award-winning researcher at Bellingcat, he focuses on a variety of topics, including post-strike analysis of attacks like that on the mosque in al-Jinah.

Note: Hundreds of official videos showing airstrikes against targets of the so-called Islamic State (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq have recently been removed from the public YouTube channel of the Coalition. In a written statement to Bellingcat, the Coalition said higher-quality versions of the videos were being uploaded to DVIDS for “greater transparency and increased availability.” However, an initial assessment appears to show that not all videos have been migrated. Coalition offficials have also given a different account to Airwars in the past as to why the videos were removed, suggesting their presence on the official YouTube channel no longer matched strategic goals. Airwars is permanently archiving all known Coalition and CENTCOM videos issued since August 2014, to ensure their continued availability.

The publicly provided locations issued by the Coalition for its airstrikes in Iraq and Syria may be off by as much as 93 kilometers, according to a new and detailed analysis of released military videos. After 1,000 days of the anti-ISIL campaign, these disparities pose question marks for monitors attempting to understand where US and allied strikes took place, and then match them to civilian casualty reports from the ground. They also makes clear that Coalition casualty assessors would be unwise to use their own published reports as a guide to where airstrikes have actually taken place,

In its Transparency Audit of the Coalition, published in December 2016, Airwars noted problems with the public reporting process. Difficult to navigate internal logs “in turn led to quite vague military reporting.” Locations, then, could only be taken as approximate. One CENTCOM senior official explained the situation in some detail:

“When the aircrew come back [from a strike mission], as you drill into a geographic location, some of those areas have towns that consist of three or four people. So typically what’s going to be in the strike log is going to be the largest city nearby. And they’ll annotate, ‘Conducted a strike near Mosul.’ In fact it’s going to be some small town that’s 23 clicks [kilometers] outside of Mosul. If they put that on the strike log, once it goes through the ‘Enterprise’ [slang for the Combined Air Operations Centre] no one knows where that is.”

Officials were keen to stress that if an incident was being investigated, “we do have the ability to go back and drill down into the detail.”

200 videos

While earlier videos were posted by CENTCOM, the first video depicting an airstrike was uploaded to the Coalition’s own official Youtube channel on April 11, 2015. Over 200 airstrike videos followed over nearly two years. By far the majority (around 68% as of April 24, 2017) of Coalition airstrikes have been conducted by the US. Airstrike videos are also disseminated through other channels, such as the ministries of defence of Coalition members, including the British, the French, the Jordanians, and the Iraqis.

Additionally, at least one US Navy air squadron had also uploaded videos separately to their own YouTube channel (since taken down.) While Bellingcat has crowdsourcing projects running for those specific MoD videos as well, they are not included in this analysis.

So far, 67 percent of the airstrikes shown in the Coalition airstrike videos have been successfully geolocated. You can access all Bellingcat data, which will be updated as soon as there are new geolocations, including from DVIDS HUB, on Silk. Bellingcat used Meedan’s Check platform to geolocate the videos, and the project is open to everyone to join By far most of the strikes shown in videos uploaded to YouTube (as of April 28, 2017) were geolocated to Iraq.

Broken down by provinces, the highest number of airstrikes were geolocated to the Iraqi governorates of Nineveh and Anbar, followed by the Syrian governorate of Aleppo, as of April 28, 2017.

Generally, the Coalition gives an indication of a geographical location by labeling the videos “near [location X]”. There are only a handful of videos that do not contain the word “near” but simply mention a location. This analysis considers “near” as being within a 10 km range of the claimed location and a label is considered “accurate” when it falls within that range. Of all geolocated videos, 68 percent were determined to be accurate. Videos outside of the 10 km range strayed up to around 93 km of the claimed location, and for one video no location approximation was given.

Many of the videos with a significant distance from the claimed location are oil-related facilities that are indeed ‘near’ Deir ez-Zor or Al-Bukamal, such as an oil separation facility at the Al-Ahmar oil field. In a desert with few or no settled areas nearby, these location claims may still be considered relatively accurate.

However, there are other incidents that appear to be less concisely located. Perhaps the most concerning incident of all the geolocated videos was a strike on an IS “concealed tactical vehicle” that was claimed to have been conducted on March 23, 2015, which was labelled as “near Al Hawl”, a town in north-eastern Syria. However, the targeted building has been successfully geolocated to a building in Jayar Ghalfas, a town in northwest Iraq.

A screenshot from a Coalition video claiming to show an airstrike on an IS ‘concealed tactical vehicle’ near Al-Hawl, a town in eastern Syria. The building was geolocated to Jayar Ghalfas, a town in northwest Iraq, as the Microsoft Bing satellite imagery (36.137411, 41.297414) on the right shows. The location is around 30 km southwest of Al-Hawl.

Though this video was labelled as being in a different country than where it actually took place, it is still relatively near Al-Hawl — around 30 km away.

When Col. Steve Warren, at the time the Coalition’s spokesperson, gave an “Ask Me Anything” on the social media and news aggregation website Reddit, this author asked him about this particular incident. Col. Warren replied that this was “an administrative error that it’s listed as Syria rather than Iraq”, explaining that Al-Hawl in Syria “was the nearest identifiable city to the strike.”

The reply by Col. Warren, the Coalition’s spokesperson on the question why it was labelled near to a town in Syria but showed a location in Iraq.

More recently, the US erred in its labelling once more, when a controversial strike on a group of individuals gathered in a mosque in Al-Jinah, Syria, was initially labelled as being in the Idlib governorate. While close, the building was actually in nearby Aleppo governorate. This strike was not an official Coalition attack – and was instead the United States unilaterally targeting alleged al Qaeda fighters. The US carries out nearly all of the alliance’s anti-ISIL bombings in Syria, and military assets can be used for both campaigns.

When asked for clarification about this incident, a CENTCOM spokesperson told Bellingcat that they “don’t mean to cause any confusion. Different internal reports may have listed this differently.”

The Coalition thus seems to use a limited number of labels for their targeted location areas. The “Al Hawl, Syria” label was probably closer than their nearest other Iraqi location label, “Sinjar”, around 50 km northeast of Jayar Ghalfas.

The Coalition’s ‘region’ labels

Which region does the Coalition use to label one airstrike as “near Mosul” but the other one as “near Al Hawl”? To get a better insight in which regions are used by the Coalition, the geolocator @obretix mapped all geolocated airstrike videos, and then used a Voronoi diagram – which is a partitioning of a plane into regions based on distance to points in a specific subset of the plane. In this case, the points are thus all “near” locations mentioned by the Coalition. The geolocations are then corresponding to a region that is closer than any other point.

As the following image shows, Al-Hawl is indeed the closest location to the target struck by the Coalition (circled in red) in the number of areas the Coalition has used.

An excerpt from a Voronoi diagram of an impression of the regions used by the Coalition, based on the geolocated videos. The geolocated airstrike of March 23, 2016 that was labelled near ‘Al Hawl’ is circled in red. Map by @obretix

There are more interesting insights the maps reveals. While the Coalition does use a label for “near Kubaysah”, a city in Iraq, some strikes within the city’s perimeters were labelled as “near Hit” — a city nearby but still less accurate than using a label there was for that city.

A detailed view on the Kubaysah/Hit region on the Voronoi diagram map, showing that two videos labelled as “near Hit” were in fact closer to Kubaysah, which also has its own ‘location label’.

Another example of remarkable region labels is the use of hamlets, such as “near Washiya” and “near Sultan Abdullah” – places with only a few houses. but close to respectively Aleppo and Mosul. “Near Aleppo” is not used in any of the YouTube videos, while “near Washiya” has been twice for a target only a double dozen kilometres away from Aleppo city. Why would these small hamlets be used as a region label, while the case of Jayar Ghalfas could not get its own region label? Is this intentional? This is a question that remains unanswered.

Overall, all location claims were all within 100 km distance of the claimed location, and all of these claims were relatively accurate as to the location it referred to — unlike the Russian airstrike videos, which were in some cases massively inaccurate.

A detailed view of the area around Aleppo city in Syria. A video close to Aleppo was not tagged as “near Aleppo” but “near Washiya” (orange dot), a tiny hamlet in the northern countryside

Civilian Casualties

It is possible that civilian casualties take place in a portion of these videos. Some, such as the video of airstrikes on the University of Mosul in March 2016, may in fact show airstrikes that caused significant civilian casualties.

Perhaps the most striking example of a video showing civilian casualties came from an airstrike on September 20th-21st, 2015, targeting an IS “VBIED network” according to the Coalition at the time. The video – which showed a structure destroyed by an explosion – was deleted after questions were raised, but  was archived and re-uploaded by others, including investigative journalist Azmat Khan.

But was this really a “VBIED network”? Under the original upload, a commenter posted that the structures shown were his family’s home in Mosul.

“I will NEVER forget my innocent and dear cousins who died in this pointless airstrike. Do you really know who these people were? They were innocent and happy family members of mine.”

Days after the strike Dr Zareena Grewal, a relative living in the US wrote in the New York Times that four members of the Rezzo family had died in the strike. On April 2nd 2017 – 588 days later – the Coalition finally admitted that it indeed bombed a family home which it had confused with an ISIL headquarters.

“The case was brought to our attention by the media and we discovered the oversight, relooked [at] the case based on the information provided by the journalist and family, which confirmed the 2015 assessment,” Colonel Joe Scrocca, Director of Public Affairs for the Coalition told Airwars.

Even though the published strike video actually depicted the unseen killing of a family, it remained – wrongly captioned – on the official Coalition YouTube channel for more than a year.

It is worth mentioning that all of the targets in the Coalition’s videos appear to be ‘clean’ objects like vehicles, factories and fighting positions. It almost looks like video game, just like IS’s propaganda videos of suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (SVBIEDs). The Coalition’s videos appear only to showcase the precision and efficiency of Coalition bombs and missiles. They rarely show people, let alone victims.

Published

May 4, 2017

Written by

Airwars Staff

For two years Kinda Haddad has tracked and assessed for Airwars more than a thousand alleged Coalition and Russian civilian casualty incidents in Syria. In recent months, as the battle against ISIL has intensified, reports of civilian deaths around Raqqa caused by the US-led alliance have risen steeply. Yet in contrast to the siege of Aleppo, international media coverage has largely been absent. Here Kinda offers her thoughts on why two bombed cities might be treated so differently.

Researching allegations of civilian casualties made against Coalition and Russian air strikes in Syria in real time – while listening to the radio news as I do in my daily life – has become a vivid exercise in cognitive dissonance.

Claims against Russia are, it seems, often quickly picked up and reported on extensively, and especially so at times when Moscow’s actions are at their harshest and most intense.  In the autumn and winter of 2016 for example, Russia and the regime of Bashar al Assad were doing their utmost to retake Aleppo from the rebels. The two allies put the city under a crippling siege and bombed it without any discernible consideration for the presence of civilians. Indeed, on many occasions both Russia and the regime appeared to purposefully target civilian infrastructure and medical facilities.

That brutal campaign succeeded in gaining control of eastern Aleppo in December 2016.  The cost in civilian lives was enormous, and a great proportion of those killed were women and children.  In less than four months leading up to the fall of Aleppo more than 1,000 civilians were reportedly killed by Russian strikes. In November alone, the Syrian Network for Human rights tied 358 civilian deaths to Russia. During all of 2016, the group estimates that Russian forces killed more than 3,900 civilians.

Whatever one thinks of the regime and of Russia, the fact that the plight of civilians was highlighted is what I would expect from a free media in a free society, as part of their job of ‘speaking truth to power’. And they did so in spades.

There was a considerable degree of attention paid by international media to events on the ground, with Russia’s actions in the news all day, every day. Civilians who had escaped were interviewed extensively and the misery and losses they had endured were highlighted. It was so bad I would often turn the radio off. Despite all the awful material I view daily I still find the recorded sounds of shelling and the voices of people more distressing.

The White Helmets rescue civilians from the rubble following Russian or Assad regime airstrikes on Aleppo, July 8th 2016. (via, Alsharq News)

Crippling assault

A few months on and Airwars is monitoring a very similar situation with the Coalition both in Raqqa province in Syria, and in Mosul city in Iraq – each ISIL strongholds for several years.

As with Aleppo, Mosul is under crippling assault – and like the Russians who work alongside the Syrian army, the Coalition is working alongside Iraqi government  forces, carrying out air and artillery shelling.

Despite repeated statements that the Coalition takes great care to avoid targeting civilians, events on the ground reflect a different version of events. The level of casualties has been shocking, with between 1,308 and 2,435 civilians claimed killed by the Coalition in Mosul in March 2017 alone. There remains a high level of confusion as to what degree the Coalition and Iraqi forces – and ISIL – are causing these deaths. The same happened in Aleppo, where it became very hard for people on the ground to distinguish between Russian and regime warplanes. Artillery in particular – used heavily in Mosul – is difficult to tell apart.

While the Russian campaign has shown a clear pattern of targeting civilians, the Coalition insists that it pursues a much more careful operation.  Yet the level of civilian casualties from both the Coalition and Russian operations are simply too high – and in the case of the Coalition it is not appropriate, or just, to dismiss hundreds of incidents as “mistakes.” Every day – not week – we are seeing several such “mistakes,” with no explanation from the Coalition. This gives the distinct impression that when faced with a military target,  neither side cares much as to whether civilians are present or not.

Raqqa Silence

International media was slow to report on high civilian deaths at first. However recent weeks have seen major field reports and investigations from international and regional news groups – which have helped pressure both the Coalition and Iraqi forces into reducing harm to civilians.

But across the border in Syria’s Raqqa province it’s a very different story – even though many of its cities and towns have been put under siege by the Kurdish SDF, and with Coalition air raids escalating in a way we have not seen since the beginning of the war against ISIL in Syria in September 2014. March saw the worst casualty levels yet with between 320 and 860 civilians likely killed in Coalition strikes in Syria, a sixfold increase on the previous month. Ninety per cent of these deaths were around Raqqa.

Where we used to see a handful of allegations a week we are now monitoring several cases a day. Many of these bear high death tolls. For example up to 17 people, most of them women and children, were reportedly killed as they tried to escape Al Tabaqa on April 24th 2017. Their cars were targeted and everyone in the vehicles perished.

#IntlCoalition forces committed #massacre against children and women in al Tabaqa city in #Raqqa on Apr 24 #SNHRhttps://t.co/p2h7VpYPYr

— Syrian Network (@snhr) April 24, 2017

And there are so many incidents like this every week. Sometimes there is very little information. But other times there is a flood of detail from local outlets and social media, including names and photos of the victims. On those days I check how the incident is being reported internationally, and invariably there is…. radio silence

Unlike the allegations made against Russia at Aleppo, claims of civilians killed by the Coalition around Raqqa seem to attract little to no international media attention. Yet the sources for allegations both against the Russians and the Coalition are often identical -activists on the ground, with access to a network of people in the various locations where civilian casualties are occuring.

As in Aleppo, Coalition strikes are many times occurring right in the middle of city and town centres – Mosul, Raqqa, Al Tabaqa, al Mansoura and so many other urban locations. These are civilian villages, towns and cities occupied by ISIL. Some of the residents may be sympathetic to the terror group but most of them are not. It is not a democracy, not a choice to live under ISIL. These are places full of people who have no other option but to remain.

The Coalition is likely to win the war with a high civilian toll, just as Russia helped win at Aleppo. But in order to win the peace, a new strategy is needed with civilians at its heart. We can see in the opposition areas where Russia is operating how hated Moscow is. Inevitably, the same now appears to be happening in areas where the Coalition is operating, with local monitors routinely claiming ‘massacres’ and ‘war crimes’.

Leaving scores of civilians dead, wounded, lame and traumatised is not a wise long term strategy for winning a war that is avowedly being fought on behalf of those exact same civilians.

▲ A man carries a young girl in the aftermath of an airstrike on Al Haydariya, Aleppo, on April 26th, 2016 (via RFS news).

Published

May 4, 2017

Written by

Airwars Staff

The stark contrast between local accounts of civilian deaths in Iraq that I analyse each day, and the sterile portrayal of the air campaign against ISIL by Coalition militaries, is often striking. As the Airwars researcher focused on Belgium and the Netherlands, bridging the gap between these two positions has become a key part of my daily work.

On a regular working day I move back and forth between military discourse about a ‘clean track record’ and ‘zero civilian casualties’ (Belgium) and ‘we are transparent enough’ (the Netherlands) on the one hand – and counting the number of dead after airstrikes on a West Mosul neighbourhood.

Belgium and the Netherlands launched their first bombs in October 2014 – and have carried out respectively about 390 and 500 airstrikes each (although the most recent numbers are lacking). In almost 1,000 days of war, they have not admitted a single civilian casualty between them.

For the United States the gap between its killing a civilian and publicly admitting the fact is now around six weeks. The Netherlands says it is still investigating one incident from December 2014 – more than two years ago – and refuses to divulge any details of a second case.

Belgium, for its part, had firmly claimed “zero civilian casualties” – until it was revealed that the country was possibly involved in a catastrophic incident in New Mosul on March 17th 2017. The Minister says he now awaits the results of Coalition investigations – but the country’s own Public Prosecutor has already decided not to investigate.

Transparency “behind closed doors”

Last month Airwars presented its civilian casualty data to the Belgian Parliament’s Defence Committee and called for more openness. Yet that same day, the Committee’s Chair claimed in an opinion article that Airwars dealt in “semi-truths” and that our “conclusions were wrong”. She suggested that YouTube and Facebook were unreliable sources for civilian casualty investigations. Instead, she argued, “an entire team of professionals at the Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC)” was best suited for this job. Moreover, she claimed “full transparency in Parliament” and deemed Belgian parliamentary control sufficient to check the actions of the military.

Yet the Belgian parliament is only informed about the country’s airstrikes in secret closed-door sessions, while the public is told nothing. And the Coalition only employs two civilian casualty assessors – with a backlog of more than 700 alleged incidents yet to be investigated. 

In fact social media can be crucial in identifying civilian casualty events: for instance in a September 2015 Mosul case that the US has recently admitted. International media ignored the event completely at the time, which was only known at first by locals posting reports on Facebook. 

Both the Netherlands and Belgium continue to lurk at the bottom of transparency tables for Coalition participants, generally still refusing to say where, when or what they bomb. Yet on the ground, affected civilians continue to be at great risk from airstrikes, and they suffer too from a lack of accountability and recognition. A closed-door parliamentary meeting does not equate to public accountability, in our view.

An Iraqi-Dutch perspective

On the occasion of 1,000 days of war, Airwars also spoke with Mahmood and Husain Al Sabari, both students and members of the Union of Iraqi Youth in the Netherlands, about their view on the war and the involvement of the Netherlands. The two Dutch-Iraqi brothers – one now living in London – said that what troubled them most were not the Dutch airstrikes or lack of transparency, but the absence of awareness about the role of Western countries in contributing to instability in the Middle East.

Mahmood thinks that launching bombs is not the way to get rid of dictators or extremist groups. “Yet the Dutch military contribution is marginal, compared to the role of the US and other countries. What is most painful for us, is the lack of knowledge among fellow Dutch youth about the Western involvement in the region. This is regarding the bombs, but more importantly in terms of the ongoing arms trade and the decision to choose sides by training certain groups. And then it seems that people do not see the link with migration, which is framed as a problem, a crisis. That is really frustrating sometimes.”

Husain agrees. “That is why we don’t really talk about this topic with peers anymore. The lack of knowledge makes it feel like we’re on a different wave-length; we really speak a different language when it comes to this.”

When asked what they think of the poor transparency records in the Netherlands, the brothers say they are not really shocked. Mahmood admits that “since six or seven years, I have come to view Western democratic principles as rather hypocritical.” Husain, for his part, said he did not really know why the Dutch are so silent about the air campaign. He suggests that it might be an attempt to keep a reputation of  “a dove of peace”. He continues: “But you know, people don’t really care. They don’t care about accountability. Maybe just a few people, like you, do.”

This 1,000 days of war highlights once again the continuing importance of accountability and the need to bridge realities. Airwars’ call for more transparency and visibility is gaining support in both the Netherlands and Belgium, and is a view shared by supportive media, NGOs and political parties.

(Belgian MoD/ Sedeyn Ritchie)

▲ A Belgian Air Component F-16 Fighting Falcon approaches a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker from the 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron before aerial refueling during a Combined Joint Task Force- Operation Inherent Resolve mission over Iraq, April 11, 2017. The F-16 has been a major component of the combat forces committed to the war on terrorism, flying thousands of sorties in support of operations in the Middle East. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua A. Hoskins)

Published

May 4, 2017

Written by

Airwars Staff

Baghdad-based Latif Habib has been tracking and researching alleged Coalition civilian casualty incidents in Iraq for Airwars for more than two years – and has been on the front lines during the Mosul assault on five occasions so far. Here Latif reflects on why the campaign to capture Iraq’s second city has proved so lethal for civilians still trapped within. 

The plan to liberate Mosul from the control of so-called Islamic State has undergone several changes. Initially the reported aim was to leave an escape route from the western half of the city for the use of militants and possibly also civilians, in order both to relieve combat pressure and to protect civilians. Instead, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been trapped in West Mosul in what is becoming a fight to the death with ISIL. 

Plans and actions have differed radically between the right bank of the Tigris – geographically, the western half of the city – and the left bank, or eastern side. Initially, during operations to capture the east which began in October 2016, the Iraqi government and military leaders advised civilians to remain in their homes during the fighting. Coupled with the use of elite anti-terrorism forces who were well trained in urban warfare, this was a relative success – although as Airwars has reported, hundreds of civilians still likely died.

However, the same plan in far denser western Mosul has cost the lives of large numbers of civilians, in large part due to continuous aerial and artillery bombardment carried out by the Coalition and Iraqi forces. More than 5,500 bombs, missiles and rockets were used by the Coalition in Mosul in March alone, with thousands more munitions likely fired by Iraqi forces. 

These attacks have targeted Daesh facilities and units along with the headquarters of their leaders. But in many cases they have also struck the neighborhoods and markets of the Right Bank, hitting civilians and causing great loss of life. Several of the raids reportedly targeted areas where citizens were also present, including buildings and mosques that were being used as places of refuge for families displaced from other neighbourhoods where military confrontations were also taking place. This has led to even higher casualty figures.

A leaflet dropped on Mosul warns civilians to stay away from ISIL-held buildings

‘Sixty per cent of West Mosul destroyed’

The leadership of the international Coalition has continued to use long range rockets, mortars and artillery as well as airplanes to target Daesh fighters, especially inside the residential neighbourhoods of the Old City.  One particularly deadly raid on March 16th-17th hit residential buildings in which dozens of civilian families were gathered in the al Jadida neighborhood – all of them residents of the area. At least 280 civilians are now thought to have died in bombardments on the immediate neighbourhood, according to Iraqi civil defence.

Many questions remain unanswered about how these houses could have been targeted by the international coalition and Iraqi forces, with no conclusive findings so far. In my own view, there has been no serious effort to learn from the grave mistakes so far made by aircraft of the international coalition, or to deal with the resulting excessive human losses. All the arguments and excuses offered by US officials and leaders in the field have done nothing to change the tragedy of the civilians on the ground, and have not removed the suspicions among many Moslawis of the Coalition.

The excessive use of weapons like mortars and heavy machine guns inside the city, and random shelling by both sides, has caused additional casualties. The Federal Police, who are not trained in urban warfare but were even so used heavily in the battle for West Mosul, have reportedly caused a great deal of destruction. Daesh snipers also position themselves on the rooftops of buildings turning civilians into an indirect target, while the terror group’s suicide truck bombs have caused great destruction to civilian areas.

Already, many hundreds of civilian have died in the Old City, with its narrow streets and alleyways, where very intense firepower was used to compensate for the fact that Iraqi tanks and heavy equipment could not enter. Elite counter-terrorism forces who fought in eastern Mosul suffered heavy losses in that battle, and have been replaced in the west by less experienced soldiers and police. Airstrikes, rockets and artillery and mortar bombardment have, it is claimed, destroyed as much as 60% of West Mosul.

According to the United Nations the battle for Mosul is the biggest urban assault since World War Two – which has already lasted a month longer than the siege of Stalingrad. The failure by both the Coalition and the Iraqi government to create safe corridors for civilians to leave during the fighting – instead requiring them to stay in their homes – has contributed greatly to the very high number of civilian casualties now being reported.

▲ U.S. Soldiers assigned to Battery C, 2nd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division fire their M777 towed 155 mm howitzer during a fire mission near Mosul, Iraq, Feb. 03, 2017. Battery C is supporting Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, the global Coalition to defeat ISIL in Iraq and Syria. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Craig Jensen)

Published

March 17, 2017

Written by

Airwars Staff

The Belgian Ministry of Defence has revealed that its F-16s carried out 639 sorties in Iraq and Syria between July 2016 and March 6th 2017, as part of the ongoing international war against so-called Islamic State. Of these sorties, 45% or about 287 were kinetic actions – meaning weapons were used. 

The fresh details about Belgium’s campaign were given at a press conference on March 14th – six months after the last such briefing. Belgium’s squadron of six F-16 fighters and seven pilots are conducting around 400 hours of sorties a month, or two to four sorties every day – a significant contribution from such a small force.

The Belgian campaign – which will end its second deployment in June – has been among the least transparent among Coalition partners. Even so Belgium continues to maintain that its actions have not killed or severely injured any Syrian or Iraqi civilians in more than two years of war.

Overall Airwars estimates that Belgium has now conducted around 390 airstrikes against ISIL since 2014 – with a higher than expected number of actions in Syria indicated in the latest release. This also suggests Belgium is the sixth most active member of the US-led Coalition.

Most Belgian airstrikes are focused at Mosul and Raqqa – where Airwars is also tracking high reported civilian casualties (Image source: Defensie – La Défense)

According to officials, 70 per cent of Belgian armed sorties since July 2016 have been around Mosul (down from 83% reported in September), with a further 12% in the Anbar area of Iraq, and 17% of actions near Raqqa in Syria – a rise of 10 per cent in recent months. A Coalition-backed advance on ISIL’s claimed capital has also seen record recent claims of civilian casualties.

Ministry of Defence officials have additionally reported that four types of munitions are in regular use by Belgium in Iraq and Syria – all of them 500lb or above. These are the GBU-12 laser-guided bomb; GBU-38 and GBU-31 GPS-guided munitions (the latter a 2,000lb bomb); and the GBU-54 combined laser/GPS-guided bomb. Unlike its closest ally the Netherlands, Belgium does not yet use the 250lb Small Diameter Bomb, known for its claimed precision. According to spokesman Colonel J. Poesen, “those have been ordered”.

Belgium says it is using four types of munition in its anti-ISIL strikes (Source: Defensie – La Défense)

‘No civilian casualties’

Belgium claims it applies both a lengthy pre-strike assessment process, and extensive post strike battle damage assessments for all of its airstrikes. It says that this careful approach, supported by two imagery analysts based in Ramstein in Germany, and four legal advisors including a red card holder (in Udeid, Qatar) means Belgian forces have not killed a single civilian. In the words of Colonel Poesen: “We have a clean record. Cleaner than some other countries.” However, it was later admitted that “zero risk does not exist” and that “there are limitations”.

While Belgium clearly attaches significant importance to civilian lives, a clean record would be unprecedented in a hot war such as the present anti-ISIL conflict – particularly when most strikes are now in urban areas. Airwars currently estimates that a minimum of 2,590 Iraqi and Syrian civilians have died in Coalition airstrikes – more than ten times the present Coalition estimate of 220 deaths.

Given that 70 per cent of recent Belgian actions have taken place around Mosul and 17% near Raqqa, it appears unlikely its forces have not been involved in any civilian casualty incidents. Hundreds of civilians have been credibly reported killed in airstrikes at both locations in recent months.

The Defence Ministry’s claim also cannot be tracked against the public record, since no dates or specific locations for Belgian strikes have been published – and with no details of any civilian casualty investigations made public. 

In a major Airwars transparency audit published in December, Belgium was rated as one of the least transparent members of the Coalition. Press conferences and the publication of monthly updates – which the MoD appears to have resumed – are signs of some improvement. Even so, public accountability and transparency continue to be problematic.  Without knowing where and when hundreds of Belgian strikes took place, the “zero civilian casualties” claim remains a claim, with the actual human cost of Belgian strikes unknown.

On March 20th, Belgian civil society is holding a conference on civilian casualty monitoring. And two days later, Airwars has been invited to present its latest transparency study to the Parliament’s Defence Committee.

Belgium performs poorly against other Coalition partners when it comes to transparency

▲ A Royal Belgian Air Force F-16 refuels over Iraq, October 10th 2016 (USAF/Tech. Sgt. Larry E. Reid Jr)