Washington (CNN) The Pentagon has told Congress it estimates that nearly 500 civilians were killed as a result of US military actions in the first year of the Trump administration.

"(The Department of Defense) assesses that there are credible reports of approximately 499 civilians killed and approximately 169 civilians injured during 2017" as a result of military operations in Iraq and Syria targeting ISIS, operations in Afghanistan targeting the Taliban and ISIS, and operations in Yemen against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS, the report said.

The report which provides an estimate of the number of civilian casualties in counterterrorism operations in 2017 also said the Defense Department has "no credible reports" of civilian casualties as a result of US military operations in Somalia or Libya last year.

However, the report adds that "more than 450 reports of civilian casualties from 2017 remained to be assessed," meaning the number of civilian casualties caused by US military operations could go up.

The report covers both US airstrikes as well as ground combat operations.

Read More </s> Nearly 500 civilians were killed in U.S. military operations in President Donald Trump's first year in office, a Pentagon report to Congress estimates.

"The Department of Defense (DoD) assesses that there are credible reports of approximately 499 civilians killed and approximately 169 civilians injured during 2017," the report said, noting military operations against Daesh terror group in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen, and against Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda in Yemen.

The counter-terrorism report said the DoD had "no credible reports" of civilian casualties due to U.S. military actions in Libya or Somalia in 2017.

However, "more than 450 reports of civilian casualties from 2017 remained to be assessed," the report added, indicating the casualty count could increase.

The report includes civilian casualties in both ground combat operations and airstrikes.

Airstrikes in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia increased significantly during the Trump administration's first year. In Afghanistan, the number of strikes jumped nearly quarterfold, to 4,361 in 2017 from 1,337 in 2016. The number of strikes in Syria and Iraq climbed to 39,577 from 30,743 in the same period, according to the Air Forces Central Command.

"Despite the best efforts of U.S. forces, civilian casualties are a tragic but at times unavoidable consequence of combat operations," the Pentagon said, attributing the casualties to the use of human shields and other endangering tactics by Daesh and al-Qaeda in urban areas.

The report was delivered under a mandate signed into effect by executive order by then-President Barack Obama in 2016.

The order mandated "an annual summary" including terrorist and civilian casualties as well as "the number of strikes undertaken by the U.S. Government against terrorist targets" in areas outside active conflict sites.

Though Obama's order specified the report would be made public "annually on May 1," the Trump administration missed the deadline, drawing criticism from human rights groups.

On Thursday, the U.S.-led coalition combating Daesh in Iraq and Syria reported "at least 892 civilians have been unintentionally killed" in 29,358 coalition strikes from August 2014 through the end of April 2018.

However, outside groups put the number of civilians killed much higher than the coalition's count.

While the DoD acknowledged the discrepancies, it attributed them to "different types of information and different methodologies to assess whether civilian casualties have occurred." </s> "(The Department of Defense) assesses that there are credible reports of approximately 499 civilians killed and approximately 169 civilians injured during 2017" as a result of military operations in Iraq and Syria targeting ISIS, operations in Afghanistan targeting the Taliban and ISIS, and operations in Yemen against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS, the report said.

The report which provides an estimate of the number of civilian casualties in counterterrorism operations in 2017 also said the Defense Department has "no credible reports" of civilian casualties as a result of US military operations in Somalia or Libya last year.

However, the report adds that "more than 450 reports of civilian casualties from 2017 remained to be assessed," meaning the number of civilian casualties caused by US military operations could go up.

The report covers both US airstrikes as well as ground combat operations.

During the first year of the Trump administration airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia increased while the number of strikes in Libya decreased. The number of airstrikes in 2017 in Afghanistan was 4,361 versus 1,337 in 2016 and the number of strikes in Iraq and Syria in 2017 was 39,577 versus 30,743 in 2016, according to Air Forces Central Command. "Despite the best efforts of US forces, civilian casualties are a tragic but at times unavoidable consequence of combat operations," the Pentagon's report said. "This is especially true when fighting in urban areas and against adversaries like ISIS and al-Qaeda who use civilians as shields and whose tactics include intentionally endangering the lives of innocents," it added. Delivery of the report was mandated by a 2016 executive order signed by then-President Barack Obama. That order called for "an annual summary" detailing the "the number of strikes undertaken by the US Government against terrorist targets" outside areas of active hostilities as well as information regarding the number of terrorists and civilians killed in those strikes. The order said that the report was to be made public "annually on May 1, consistent with the need to protect sources and methods." Human rights groups slammed the Trump administration last month when the order's deadline was missed. The US-led military coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria released its own report Thursday saying that "at least 892 civilians have been unintentionally killed" as a result of the 29,358 strikes that the coalition has carried out against ISIS targets between August 2014 and the end of April 2018. Outside groups have said that the number of civilians killed in the ISIS fight is much higher than the coalition's figures. "(The Department of Defense) acknowledges that there are differences between DoD assessments and reports from other organizations," the report said, saying "these differences result from a variety of factors" including the use of "different types of information and different methodologies to assess whether civilian casualties have occurred." </s> Human rights advocates are calling the Pentagon's newly released figures on civilian casualties during President Donald Trump's first year in office a massive under-count that belies the true scale of carnage and reveals an absence of meaningful investigations into reported deaths.

In its required report to Congress, the Pentagon said Friday that "there are credible reports of approximately 499 civilians killed and approximately 169 civilians injured during 2017" as a result of military operations in Iraq ,Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. There were "no credible reports" of civilian casualties as a result of U.S. military operations in Somalia or Libya in 2017, the report claimed. There are still "450 reports of civilian casualties," however, that "remained to be assessed," indicating the Pentagon itself could increase the toll.

"Despite the best efforts of U.S. forces, civilian casualties are a tragic but at times unavoidable consequence of combat operations," the Pentagon's report said.

According to Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, the death toll the Pentagon is owning up to—a month late—seems "astonishingly low," calling the administration's "methodology, investigation, and credibility into question."

Consider, for example, that the monitoring group Airwars said in a tweet on Friday: "For reference, @airwars counted over 2,200 (more than 4x [the Pentagon's number]) civilian deaths due to U.S.-led strikes just in Iraq and Syria **during the first 6 months of 2017** alone. These were mostly—but not all—American strikes." Airwars also noted that in Raqqa, Syria, "1,400 civilians were killed by U.S.-Coalition attacks between June and October 2017."

In addition, in its assessment of 2017 the group found that at a minimum, 3,900 civilians were killed in Iraq and Syria by the U.S.-led coalition:

Across Iraq and Syria, casualty incidents tied to likely Coalition strikes more than tripled compared to the year before. To date, the Coalition has conceded 93 events in which it confirms having killed or injured civilians during 2017—up from 58 such confirmed events for 2016. An additional 673 civilian casualty incidents were classified by Airwars researchers as 'Fair' for 2017. An event is assessed as fair when it has two or more uncontested credible sources, and where the Coalition has confirmed it carried out strikes in the area. Overall, between 3,923 and 6,102 non-combatants were likely killed in these 766 events in 2017— a 215% increase on the 1,243 to 1,904 civilians estimated as likely killed by Coalition strikes in 2016. At least 2,443 additional civilians were reportedly wounded in these 766 events over the course of 2017, a significant increase from the year before.

Contributing to the inaccurate picture of civilian deaths is the Pentagon's failure to actually investigate claims of such casualties, says Daphne Eviatar, director of security with human rights at Amnesty International USA.

Not only has the Pentagon "deemed that the vast majority of claims of civilian casualties are not credible without ever investigating them," she said that the "investigations that do occur by the Defense Department also do not appear to involve interviews with witnesses nor survivors, nor visits to the locations of the strikes. This further undermines their credibility."

"We call on the U.S. government to meaningfully investigate all claims of civilian casualties and to be transparent about who is killed and harmed in U.S. military operations," she added.

Assessing 2017 under Trump, commentator Sonali Kolhatkar wrote, "The greatest impact of Donald Trump's first year as president has been kept out of sight from most Americans. The wars the U.S. waged during Barack Obama's tenure have sharply escalated under Trump. The result has been a predictable and massive spike in civilian deaths."

"The monstrosities being carried out in our name, and with our tax dollars, are no less our responsibility when we ignore them," she wrote. "Trump's foreign policy may indeed be the most dangerous game he is playing as president." </s> WASHINGTON—The Pentagon said U.S. military operations in six countries killed almost 500 civilians in 2017, in an annual report that was released to the public for the first time on Friday.

The figures accounted for casualties in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The Pentagon said it hadn’t received any credible reports of civilian casualties in the remaining two countries, Libya and Somalia. </s> U.S. military operations killed approximately 500 civilians in 2017, as President Trump took command of the Pentagon and U.S. troops pursued the Islamic State and other militants overseas, a report made public on Friday found.

In a new study mandated by Congress, the Defense Department said it considered allegations about those incidents, which took place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, to be credible after an internal review. Another 169 civilians were reported injured.

But watchdog groups and legal experts said the Pentagon may be grossly undercounting the number of noncombatants killed in airstrikes and other military activities due to a faulty system for investigating and counting possible deaths.

“The Defense Department has deemed that the vast majority of claims of civilian casualties are not credible without ever investigating them,” Daphne Eviatar, a director at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement. “Its numbers therefore likely severely undercount the actual civilian death toll.”

Airwars, which tracks and examines casualty allegations using social media and other information, reported this year that the United States and its allies may have killed as many as 6,000 civilians in strikes in Iraq and Syria alone in 2017.

In its study, required by the fiscal 2018 defense authorization law, the Pentagon said it had abided by laws of war, including those designed to protect civilians.

[How a woman in England tracks civilian deaths in Syria, one bomb at a time]

Defense officials have long defended the precautions they take to avoid accidental targeting of noncombatants, citing elaborate measures taken to surveil target sites and calculate blast areas before airstrikes. Military leaders including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have called the U.S. operations against often brutal militant groups highly precise.

But the challenge facing military leaders has increased as the fight is more often conducted from a distance, using aircraft and local partners to reduce harm to U.S. troops. That approach often reduces U.S. forces’ visibility of what is occurring in battlefields where militants and civilians exist in proximity.

The period covered by the report included intense U.S. air operations to expel the Islamic State from the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, both of which occurred in a crowded urban context.

The Pentagon said it and its allies conducted more than 10,000 strikes against the Islamic State in 2017, a massive air operation that presented a challenge to U.S. surveillance and intelligence capabilities.

The report also included an increasingly intense air war in Afghanistan, where U.S. commanders have been granted new authorities to target the Taliban and provide air support to Afghan troops.

Also in 2017, U.S. forces continued their counterterrorism campaign in Yemen, where a deadly raid in January 2017 left a Navy SEAL dead and, according to Yemeni villagers, killed dozens of civilians.

The Pentagon study, which was first reported by CNN, found no credible allegations of civilian casualties in separate U.S. operations in Somalia and Libya.

Watchdog groups have long derided the Pentagon’s count as noncredible, criticizing the department for failing to conduct interviews with witnesses and survivors. They also fault the military for its lack of widespread condolence payments.

In its study, the Pentagon acknowledged the divergent death tolls but said its analysis incorporated certain information unavailable to civilian investigators “such as operational planning and intelligence sources.”

Ryan Goodman, a professor at New York University Law School and former Pentagon official, argued in a recent op-ed that a central flaw to the military process was the high bar, requiring substantial indications that a death may have occurred, set for opening an investigation. An even higher standard is required for confirming a death took place.

Speaking Friday, Goodman said the report failed to include information requested by Congress about confirmed and “reasonably suspected” cases.

“I am sure Secretary Mattis as well as Congress want to know the true number of cases in which civilians may have been killed,” he said. “This report does not provide that number.” </s> The Pentagon said U.S. military operations in six countries killed almost 500 civilians in 2017, in an annual report that was released to the public for the first time on Friday.

The figures accounted for casualties in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The Pentagon said it hadn’t received any credible reports of civilian casualties in the remaining two countries, Libya and Somalia.

The Pentagon said about 499 civilians were killed and about 169 civilians injured, without providing a breakdown of deaths and injuries per country or further details about the victims.

It also said it had yet to assess 450 civilian-casualty reports in Iraq and Syria, due to limited resources, indicating the final tally could be higher.

It was the first time the Pentagon released figures for civilian casualties caused by U.S. military ground and air operations around the world in response to a new requirement by Congress for 2018.

“We want to be as transparent as possible and show the rigorous process U.S. forces take to protect civilians,” U.S. military spokeswoman Maj. Audricia Harris said in an email.

The only comparable figures released by former President Barack Obama came in 2016, when he signed an executive order requiring the government to release figures for civilian casualties caused by U.S. airstrikes meant to target combatants in non-war zones. At the time, the White House said such operations killed 64 civilians between 2009 and 2015, a figure that was contested by nongovernmental organizations that track U.S. drone strikes.

This story continues in the Wall Street Journal. </s> For the fourth year in a row, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed or injured in the conflict in Afghanistan, the United Nations said in its annual report on civilian casualties Thursday.

The 2017 Annual Report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict in Afghanistan found that between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2017, there were 10,453 civilian casualties — 3,438 deaths and 7,015 wounded.

"The chilling statistics in this report provide credible data about the war's impact, but the figures alone cannot capture the appalling human suffering inflicted on ordinary people, especially women and children," said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan.

The numbers compare to a total 11,434 casualties for the same period in 2016, when there were 3,510 deaths and 7,924 wounded.

But the decline in total deaths was tempered by the report's finding that the number of airstrikes conducted by international military forces and Afghan air forces increased significantly — and with it the number of airstrike-related deaths.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented 631 civilian casualties — 295 deaths and 336 wounded — from aerial operations conducted by pro-government forces. That's a 7 percent increase from 2016, and the highest number from airstrikes in a single year since 2009. Aerial operations accounted for 6 percent of all civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2017.

Afghanistan has been mired in conflict since 2001 when the United States invaded after 9/11. The U.S. and NATO forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014 and shifted to a training role, but a resurgent Taliban stepped up their attacks and an affiliate of the Islamic State group has also emerged. Between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2017, the conflict in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of 28,291 civilians and wounded 52,366 others, according to the report.

Suicide and complex attacks — when assailants combine two or more modes of attack on one target at the same time — caused 22 percent of all civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2017, with 16 percent of all civilian casualties occurring from such attacks in the capital of Kabul.

Nearly 2,300 civilians were killed or wounded in suicide bombings and attacks in Afghanistan in 2017, more than any previous year of the conflict on record.

Yamamoto, who also heads UNAMA, expressed deep concern at the increased harm to civilians caused by suicide attacks.

"I am particularly appalled by the continued indiscriminate and unlawful use of (improvised explosive devices) such as suicide bombs and pressure-plate devices in civilian populated areas," he said. "This is shameful."

UNAMA also documented an increase in attacks against places of worship, religious leaders and worshippers, recording 499 civilian casualties with 202 deaths and 297 injured, during 38 such attacks in 2017. This amounted to three times as many attacks as in 2016, double the number of deaths and 30 percent more total civilian casualties.

In 2017, women continued to suffer at levels comparable to 2016. Contrary to the overall decrease in civilian casualties, women casualties increased by less than one percent, and women deaths increased by 5 percent. Ground engagements remained the leading cause of harm to women, though UNAMA documented a decrease of 11 percent in women casualties from ground fighting. The next leading cause, suicide bombings and complex attacks, caused more than double the number of women casualties in 2017 than in 2016.

In line with the overall reduction in civilian casualties in 2017, child casualties decreased by 10 percent, compared to 2016. UNAMA documented 3,179 child casualties in 2017, of which 861 were deaths and 2,318 were wounded. </s> On the outskirts of the village of Al Hud, members of the Iraqi Army visit the area where locals say Islamic State executed four or five Peshmerga in recent months. Another grave containing many more people was in the area but too dangerous to visit due to mines.

WASHINGTON — As many as 64 civilians have been killed in the last 12 months in airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, U.S. Central Command announced Wednesday.

The civilian deaths and eight noncombatant injuries occurred in 24 strikes that were each independently investigated and deemed lawful, said Air Force Col. John Thomas, a spokesman for Central Command. Thirteen of the strikes occurred in Iraq and 11 in Syria.

Thomas said avoiding civilian casualties is a “key tenant” of the Operation Inherent Resolve campaign, and he emphasized the coalition believes it’s possible that less than 64 noncombatants were killed in the strikes.

“We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties,” he said. “… Sometimes civilians bear the brunt of military action, but we do all we can to minimize those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time.”

Thomas said the military takes all reports of civilian casualties seriously. He said coalition investigations used internal records alongside reports from news outlets, non-governmental organizations and other U.S. government department and agencies.

Some outside organizations, including Amnesty International, have accused the U.S. military of inadequate investigations into reports of civilian deaths. In October, Amnesty International accused Operation Inherent Resolve airstrikes in Syria alone of killing more than 300 civilian between September 2014 and June 2016.

Pentagon and Central Command officials have disputed those numbers and touted the military’s commitment to transparency when it is accused of killing civilians.

Here are the airstrikes that Central Command said likely killed civilians since November 2015:
• Nov. 20, 2015, near Dayr-az-Zawr in Syria, against a tactical unit. Five civilians killed and three injured.
• March 5, near Mosul in Iraq, against a weapons production facility. Ten civilians killed.
• March 24, near Qayara in Iraq, against an unspecified militant target. One civilian killed.
• April 1, near Raqqa in Syria, against a tactical unit. Three civilians killed.
• April 9, near Mosul, against a tactical unit. One civilian killed.
• April 30, near Mosul, against Islamic State group military leadership. Five civilians killed.
• May 25, near Mosul, against a tactical unit. One civilian killed.
• May 26, near Mosul, against enemy fighters. One civilian killed.
• May 29, near Mosul, against a weapons system. Six civilians killed.
• June 15, near Kisik in Iraq, against a weapons storage facility. Six civilians killed.
• June 15, near Mosul, against unspecified targets. Two civilians injured.
• June 21, near Raqqa, against a headquarters building. Three civilians killed.
• June 23, near Raqqa, against a militant-held building. Four civilians killed.
• June 26, near Mosul, against an unspecified enemy target. One individual injured.
• June 26, near Mosul, against an unspecified enemy target. One individual injured.
• July 3, near Manbij in Syria, against a fighting position. Four civilians killed.
• July 10, near Manbij, against an unspecified enemy target. Two civilians killed.
• July 14, near Qayara, during a strike on an enemy-held building. One civilian killed.
• July 31, near Manbij, against enemy fighters. One civilian injured.
• Aug. 17, near Raqqa, against an enemy target. Two civilians killed.
• Aug. 20, near Manbij, against an artillery firing position. One civilian killed.
• Aug. 31, near Ramadi in Iraq, against an unspecified enemy target. Two civilians killed.
• Sept. 7, near Dayr-az-Zawr, against an oil collection point. One civilian killed.
• Sept. 10, near Raqqa, against an unspecified enemy target. Five civilians killed.
A Department of Defense report presented to the United States Congress estimates at 499 the number of civilian deaths in US military actions during the year 2017, with more than 450 reports remaining to be assessed. The casualties occurred in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.