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Secret Doc Exposes Flaws in Pentagon Claim That No Civilians Were Killed in al-Baghdadi Raid
"Over the past 20 years, the U.S. military has struggled with escalation of force and many civilians were killed when they were falsely viewed as a threat. This incident appears to be one of many such cases," said one expert.
Jul 21, 2023
A formerly classified document published Friday by NPRrevealed how the Pentagon dismissed highly credible evidence of civilian deaths caused by the October 2019 U.S. assassination of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria.
In a raid hailed by then-U.S. President Donald Trump as "impeccable," U.S. special forces stormed al-Baghdadi's hideout just outside Barisha in Idlib province on October 26-27, 2019. Realizing he was cornered during the raid, al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive device, killing himself and two children he was carrying with him, according to U.S. officials.
For years, the Pentagon dismissed a December 2019 NPRreport of a U.S. military helicopter attacking Syrian civilians in Barisha during the raid, killing two cousins traveling in a van and blowing the hand off a third man, claiming the victims were enemy combatants who ignored repeated warning shots.
NPR subsequently filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Pentagon and obtained a redacted copy of the military's erstwhile secret assessment of the raid.
The document revealed that:
- U.S. troops fired warning shots just seconds before helicopters opened fire on the victims' van, belying claims that the men demonstrated hostile intent by failing to stop or move;
- The Pentagon offered no solid evidence that the victims were enemy combatants;
- The military did not compile a recommended intelligence dossier to back its claim that the victims were "unlawful enemy belligerents";
- The Pentagon questioned the veracity of a survivor's account of the attack given to NPR—but did not interview the man; and
- The military dismissed credible evidence—including photos, reporting by NPR and other media, and assessments by NGOs including Airwars—that civilians were harmed in the raid.
"Over the past 20 years, the U.S. military has struggled with escalation of force and many civilians were killed when they were falsely viewed as a threat," Larry Lewis of the Center for Naval Analyses told
NPR. "This incident appears to be one of many such cases."
The raid's sole survivor, a 39-year-old laborer named Barakat Ahmad Barakat, told
NPR that the two men who were killed were his friends and that they were heading home after working at a local olive press. Barakat—who insisted he did not know that al-Baghdadi was hiding out in the area—said the U.S. airstrike took the men by surprise. They fled the van but came under renewed aerial attack.
"Suddenly I felt something hit us," he said. His friends, 27-year-old Khaled Mustafa Qurmo and 30-year-old Khaled Abdel Majid Qurmo, were killed. Barakat's right hand was blown off; his arm was later amputated. His left hand was also badly injured.
The U.S. military initially claimed that the army helicopters came under fire from the van. However, a formerly classified U.S. Central Command document previously published by NPR shows that the Pentagon acknowledged the claim was untrue.
The newly exposed document states that the military also "assessed secondary explosions emitted from the vehicle, indicating weapons and explosive devices were on board the panel van."
This was untrue, as was a similar claim made by the Pentagon following an August 2021 drone strike that killed 43-year-old Afghan aid worker Zamarai Ahmadi and nine of his relatives, including seven children, in Kabul during the chaotic days of U.S. withdrawal from a 20-year invasion.
The Pentagon often attempts to conceal or minimize civilian casualties caused by U.S. bombs and bullets, which have killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of civilians in more than half a dozen nations since the ongoing so-called War on Terror began after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
NPR's latest report on the al-Baghdadi raid comes as the Pentagon implements its Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP), a series of policy steps aimed at preventing and responding to the death and injury of noncombatants.
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Investigation Belies UK Claim That No Civilians Were Killed in Iraq-Syria Bombings
"Britain claims a 'perfect' war against Islamic State in Iraq," said a report co-author. "It isn't credible, and it isn't true."
Mar 21, 2023
British airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria likely killed dozens of noncombatants despite claims by U.K. military leaders that no civilians died during such bombings, a major investigation by the monitor group Airwars and The Guardian revealed on Tuesday.
"Britain claims a 'perfect' war against Islamic State in Iraq. Thousands of missiles fired, thousands of fighters killed, and not a single civilian harmed," Guardian senior international affairs reporter and report co-author Emma Graham-Harrison tweeted. "It isn't credible, and it isn't true."
Airwars obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests previously classified documents from which the group identified eight airstrikes that may have been carried out by U.K. warplanes in which at least 32 civilians were killed.
"Working with The Guardian, we visited Iraq to search for the victims mentioned in the original casualty allegations and piece together what happened," said Airwars. "One of those we found was the Younis family in Mosul."
Using declassified reports, coalition statements, survivor and other witness interviews, and 3D modeling, Airwars reconstructed the November 29, 2016 strike that killed a 6-year-old member of the Younis family in the Iraqi city.
"We found that shortly before 4:00 pm a mission commander requested a strike on ISIS militants firing at Iraqi allies. After the strike was approved, coalition analysts reported losing sight of their initial targets," the group said. "They ultimately identified another group of males on the sidewalk carrying a 'possible' weapon."
Around this time, Enam Younis and her children left their home "looking for safety a few streets away. Both Enam and her father said there were no ISIS fighters within 30 meters. As they walked past the door of the neighboring house, the missile detonated."
As The Guardian reports:
Enam Younis, 31 at the time, was thrown to the ground by the blast and has never walked again. Her older daughter, Taiba, 6, inquisitive and desperate to start school, was killed instantly. Zahra, just 3, was hurled over a fence. She survived but was peppered with shrapnel that tore into her stomach and is still lodged deep in her skull. Doctors have said that if it moves, it could cause devastating brain injury.
There was a third child, Ali, a toddler too young to walk, who was shielded from the drone cameras—and the worst of the blast—by his mother's arms, but who still lost part of a foot and hand.
Younis was taken out of Mosul for treatment and even six years later, her memories are too painful for her to return to the city she called home. "It is still impossible for me to think about going to Mosul now," she said weeping. "I didn't even visit my daughter's grave. I can't do it."
A U.K. Ministry of Defense spokesperson declined to confirm or deny whether British forces carried out any of the airstrikes detailed in the investigation while insisting that "there is no evidence or indication that civilian casualties were caused by strikes in Syria and Iraq."
"The U.K. always minimizes the risk of civilian casualties through our rigorous processes and carefully examines a range of evidence to do this, including comprehensive analysis of the mission data for every strike," the spokesperson told The Guardian.
However, according to Airwars:
Politicians, campaigners, and civil society groups have consistently raised concerns about the U.K.'s lack of civilian harm monitoring and accountability in Iraq and Syria. The Netherlands has since paid millions in compensation to victims of its strikes, while the United States has launched major policy reforms to learn the lessons of the campaign. The U.K. remains an outlier, claiming it had robust mechanisms for monitoring the impact of its strikes—including post-strike battle damage assessments—and refusing to review its policies.
Airwars has also accused U.S. officials of habitually undercounting the number of civilians killed by American bombs and bullets.
The report notes that while "civilian victims of U.K. airstrikes can theoretically claim condolence payments from the British government," those attempting to do so "would face severe procedural and legal hurdles."
"The U.K. has not publicly compensated a single victim of a British airstrike and there is no clear process for victims and their families to apply," Airwars said.
The U.S.-led coalition victory over ISIS was achieved at a tremendous cost of civilian life. Cities, towns, and villages including Mosul and Raqqa, Syria were largely reduced to rubble.
Airwars estimates that between 8,197 and 13,254 Iraqi and Syrian civilians have been killed by U.S.-led coalition forces in 1,525 separate strikes since 2014. This figure stands in stark contrast with a coalition estimate of 1,437 civilians killed in 342 separate incidents.
Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq 20 years ago, between 550,000 and 580,000 Iraqis and Syrians have died, according to Airwars.
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Iraq War Costs Could Hit Nearly $3 Trillion by 2050: Report
The Costs of War Project said the U.S.-led invasion and occupation "caused massive death, destruction, and political instability," killing hundreds of thousands of people while displacing millions more.
Mar 15, 2023
As the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq approaches, a leading research institute on Wednesday said that "the total costs of the war in Iraq and Syria are expected to exceed half a million human lives and $2.89 trillion" by 2050.
The Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs said that "this budgetary figure includes costs to date, estimated at about $1.79 trillion, and the costs of veterans' care through 2050."
According to the project:
March 19-20, 2023 marks 20 years since United States forces invaded Iraq to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, under the false claim that his regime was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. The ensuing war, in which U.S. ground presence peaked in 2007 with over 170,000 soldiers, caused massive death, destruction, and political instability in Iraq. Among the consequences was the increase of sectarian politics, widespread violence, and the rise of the Islamic State militant group with its terror attacks throughout the Middle East.
Though the U.S. government officially ended its Iraq War in 2011, the repercussions of the invasion and occupation as well as subsequent and ongoing military interventions have had an enormous human, social, economic, and environmental toll. An estimated 300,000 people have died from direct war violence in Iraq, while the reverberating effects of war continue to kill and sicken hundreds of thousands more.
The new report includes estimates for Syria, which the United States began bombing during the Obama administration after Islamic State militants rose to power amid the destabilization and power vacuum caused by the Iraq invasion and Syrian civil war. Including Syria, the Costs of War Project says between 550,000-580,000 people have been killed since March 2003, and "several times as many may have died due to indirect causes such as preventable diseases."
"More than 7 million people from Iraq and Syria are currently refugees, and nearly 8 million people are internally displaced in the two countries," the publication notes.
University of Oxford professor and Costs of War Project co-director Neta C. Crawford, who authored the report, said in a statement that "the Bush administration was convinced and assured the American people and the world that the war would have few casualties of all kinds—civilian and military—and would lead to quick victory."
"As the Costs of War Project has documented consistently, these optimistic assumptions are confronted by a record of death, high and ongoing costs, and regional devastation," she added.
Those ongoing costs include a recent $397.5 million budget request from the Biden administration to fight what's left of Islamic State.
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