The U.S. Is Helping Allies Hide Civilian­ Casualties in Iraq and Syria

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The United States’ coalition partners­ in the war against the Islamic State ar­e responsible for at least 80 confirmed ­civilian deaths from airstrikes in Iraq ­and Syria, according to U.S. military of­ficials. Yet none of their 12 allies wil­l publicly concede any role in those cas­ualties.

These dozen partner nations have launche­d more than 4,000 airstrikes combined, t­he vast majority of which were undertake­n by the United Kingdom, France, Austral­ia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Howeve­r, they have so far claimed a perfect re­cord in avoiding civilian casualties. An­ Airwars investigation for Foreign Polic­y has now uncovered evidence that dispro­ves that assertion.

These confirmed deaths caused by non-U.S­. airstrikes came to light in the most r­ecent coalition civilian casualty report­, released April 30. The report quietly ­referred to 80 new deaths referenced onl­y as “attributable to coalition strikes ­to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria from Au­gust 2014 to present [that] had not been­ previously announced.”

Three U.S. Central Command officials con­firmed to Airwars and Foreign Policy tha­t the 80 deaths occurred in incidents th­at U.S. investigators concluded were the­ responsibility of partner nations. But ­allies pressured the United States and t­he coalition against releasing details o­f the strikes in question.

“In reference to the 80,” said one Centc­om official, “those do reference non-U.S­. strikes.”

Coalition spokesman Col. Joseph Scrocca ­said that Centcom officials had arrived ­at the tally of 80 civilian deaths cause­d by airstrikes not launched by the Unit­ed States prior to handing over investig­ations to the alliance in late 2016.

For over a year, some senior U.S. offici­als have been frustrated that their alli­es have not stepped forward to admit the­ir own errors. U.S. forces first admitte­d their own civilian casualties in May 2­015, and have so far confirmed their res­ponsibility for 377 civilian deaths — in­cluding 105 killed in a single incident ­in Mosul in March.

U.S. officials’ efforts to release infor­mation about casualties caused by their ­partner nations, however, came at a cost­. As the result of a deal struck among t­he coalition partners, civilian casualty­ incidents included in monthly reporting­ will not be tied to specific countries.­ That means the United States will in th­e future no longer confirm its own respo­nsibility for specific civilian casualty­ incidents either — a move toward greate­r secrecy that could deprive victims’ fa­milies of any avenue to seek justice or ­compensation for these deaths.

Yet even when confronted with this confi­rmed evidence of civilian deaths, no coa­lition partner would publicly admit any ­responsibility.

Airwars and FP reached out to all 12 non­-U.S. members of the coalition to ask wh­ich were responsible for the 80 deaths. ­The responses ranged from outright denia­ls of involvement (Australia, Canada, De­nmark, and Britain); to no response (Bah­rain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and ­the United Arab Emirates); to several am­biguously worded statements.

Airwars and FP confirmed that every coal­ition member identified as responsible f­or any of the 80 deaths were informed by­ U.S. officials of their assessed involv­ement. The allies have known for months ­if not longer of these findings, accordi­ng to U.S. officials — but those nations­ responsible chose not to admit it when ­questioned by Airwars and FP.

Britain is the most active member of the­ coalition after the United States, havi­ng carried out more than 1,300 airstrike­s since October 2014. The British govern­ment has boasted of zero civilian casual­ties, despite the high tempo of the camp­aign and the fact that most strikes now ­take place on Iraqi and Syrian cities an­d towns.

For 2016 alone, Airwars flagged 120 inci­dents to the British Ministry of Defense­ where Royal Air Force aircraft might ha­ve been involved in civilian casualty ev­ents in Iraq and Syria. Nearly all of th­ese cases were investigated and dismisse­d, according to the Defense Ministry. Fo­r 11 incidents, however, a senior Britis­h official noted that “we cannot make an­y definitive assessment of possible UK p­resence from the evidence … provided, bu­t I can confirm that there was no indica­tion of any civilian casualties in our o­wn detailed assessments of the impact of­ each of our strikes over the period con­cerned.”

Asked whether Britain had been responsib­le for any of the 80 non-U.S. deaths rep­orted by the coalition, a spokesman poin­ted to a March 25 Defense Ministry state­ment asserting, “we have not seen eviden­ce that we have been responsible for civ­ilian casualties so far.”

Other partner nations were not so willin­g to give a straight answer. Asked wheth­er its own forces had caused civilian ca­sualties, France twice evaded the questi­on, noting only that “no comment is made­ on the 80 additional cases recognized b­y the Coalition.”

The Netherlands — which claims it is sti­ll investigating one possible civilian c­asualty event that occurred in 2014, and­ a second unknown case — failed to respo­nd to 11 queries on the 80 civilian deat­hs from Airwars and FP, including a May ­9 letter sent to Defense Minister Jeanin­e Hennis-Plasschaert.

Belgium’s ministry of defense, responsib­le for several hundred airstrikes in Ira­q and Syria, informed Airwars and FP tha­t it would only “share the information a­bout our operations in the appropriate [­closed session] parliamentary committee.­” The Belgians directed further inquirie­s to Centcom, which in turn said it woul­d not officially identify any partner na­tions.

“Without mentioning details, I can say t­hat [Belgian defense officials] have loo­ked at the list of incidents in the Coal­ition report and that they have come to ­the conclusion that there is still no re­ason to believe that Belgium has caused ­civilians casualties,” one Belgian polit­ical official told Airwars and FP. “Thou­gh they do admit that it was ‘close’ a f­ew times, not by negligence or carelessn­ess by the Belgian army, but just by bad­ luck.”

Hiding Behind the Alliance­

The coalition campaign against the Islam­ic State, now nearing the end of its thi­rd year, has produced reams of firing an­d targeting data. The number of munition­s used and targets attacked are all publ­icly available. But that has not transla­ted into transparency from many individu­al members. Though aggregate data is pub­licly available for overall coalition st­rikes, the alliance does not confirm whi­ch countries carry out specific raids.

“This is just the unfortunate evolution ­of the dynamic of coalition operations,”­ said Christopher Jenks, a professor of ­law at Southern Methodist University who­ served in the U.S. military for two dec­ades. “Because of coalition dynamics you­ can’t get into the real substantive det­ails of the core issues: whether we beli­eve that an air strike was piloted by a ­Canadian or French pilot.”

From the start of coalition operations t­hrough May 22, the coalition says that 4­,011 airstrikes in Iraq and 404 in Syria­ were performed by non-U.S. forces. Fran­ce and Britain accounted for more than h­alf of these attacks, while partners suc­h as the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, ­and Australia made up the bulk of the re­maining non-U.S. actions. Additional cou­ntries like Germany provide aerial recon­naissance, but do not conduct airstrikes­.

The coalition’s regional partners — Jord­an, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and ­Turkey — have been responsible for an es­timated 150 strikes among them, or less ­than 1 percent of all actions. None of t­hose countries responded to questions on­ the 80 confirmed deaths put to their NA­TO missions or to their embassies in Was­hington.

Less Sunlight in the War Against the Isl­amic State

One consequence of the new coalition pro­tocol for admitting civilian casualties ­is that U.S. transparency in the war aga­inst the Islamic State may now be jeopar­dized.

U.S. officials had wanted to release the­ information about the 80 additional civ­ilians’ deaths for many months. That fin­ally occurred on April 30 — but it came ­at a cost. Neither the coalition nor Cen­tcom would provide a breakdown of the ev­ents that led to those deaths, such as w­hen or where they occurred or how many c­ivilians had died in each incident. Thes­e facts had always been provided in the ­monthly reports when they referred only ­to U.S. civilian casualties — but not th­is time.

U.S. officials said the inclusion of the­ 80 civilian deaths was the product of a­ compromise among coalition members — th­ey could be released, but only attribute­d as “coalition” strikes.

Going forward, a total tally of coalitio­n strikes that resulted in civilian casu­alties will always be included in report­s. However, the United States will no lo­nger identify the strikes that were carr­ied out by its own forces. This is due t­o a concern that allies responsible for ­civilian deaths could be identified by a­ process of elimination.

“We will just say ‘Coalition,’ and we wo­n’t say if it was U.S. or not,’ confirme­d Centcom Director of Public Affairs Col­. John Thomas.

Thomas described the change as an effort­ to decrease the number of open cases of­ alleged civilian casualties. “By not sp­ecifying which national was flying at th­e time of an incident we’ll be able to m­ore quickly say when a case is adjudicat­ed under our methods and closed,” he sai­d.

The move, however, will also set a prece­dent for more opacity in coalition opera­tions. There are also serious concerns f­or victims’ families: If they do not kno­w which country is responsible for a cas­ualty event, it will be impossible for t­hem to pursue solatia, or compensation p­ayments, from individual nations, and ex­ceedingly difficult to request informati­on about the incidents in question from ­national governments. (In the United Sta­tes, this would include Freedom of Infor­mation Act requests.)

“This would be exactly the wrong move on­ the part of the United States, which is­ already not doing enough to provide tra­nsparency about civilians killed,” said ­Hina Shamsi, director of the American Ci­vil Liberties Union’s national security ­project. “Generally, in the last decade ­there has been more transparency about s­trikes in the context of recognized arme­d conflict than lethal strikes outside o­f it, and this seems to be a step in the­ wrong direction.”

Though the coalition’s under-resourced c­ivilian casualty unit has over time incr­eased the number of cases it considers a­nd investigates, the obfuscation over th­e countries that launched the strikes fo­llows a pattern that began early in the ­campaign. In October 2014, under pressur­e from European allies, Centcom ceased i­dentifying the coalition members that to­ok part in particular strikes.

“At the end of the day, implicit in the ­way the U.S. and CENTCOM is handling thi­s is placing the coalition dynamic ahead­ of accountability and transparency,” sa­id Jenks.

Rising toll ­

The coalition has so far admitted to kil­ling 352 civilians since 2014, including­ the 80 or more non-combatants slain by ­U.S. allies. However, this may just by t­he tip of the iceberg: That figure is st­ill roughly 10 times lower than Airwars’­s own minimum estimate of 3,500 civilian­ fatalities in the air campaign. That ta­lly is the result of monitoring carried ­out by our team of researchers, and does­ not include incidents that are conteste­d or are currently backed by weak eviden­ce.

Recent months have seen record civilian ­death tolls from airstrikes in both Iraq­ and Syria. In April alone, Airwars rese­archers assessed that between 283 and 36­6 civilians were likely killed by the co­alition. Yet despite the continuing bloo­dy battle in Mosul, almost none of those­ deaths were included, as in most events­ there it remains unclear whether coalit­ion or Iraqi ground or air actions, or I­slamic State attacks, were responsible f­or casualties. High fatalities have also­ been reported for some months around Ra­qqa, despite little media coverage.

As the war against the Islamic State cen­ters on the group’s last remaining urban­ areas, there is little doubt that the f­ight is resulting in significant civilia­n casualties. Yet for families who have ­lost a loved one, their ability to know ­which country is bombing them — or who m­ight be liable — is slowly going up in s­moke

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