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> Sixty-four civilians were killed and eight were injured in 24 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria over the past year, the U.S. military said Wednesday, based on newly completed investigations.

The latest totals bring the number of civilians killed in airstrikes in the fight against the Islamic State group to 119, with another 37 injured, according to U.S. Central Command.

Col. John Thomas, Central Command spokesman, said the investigations concluded that the proper military process was followed in each incident and precautions are always taken to try to avoid any civilian deaths.

Independent monitoring groups and activists, however, have repeatedly said that coalition and other airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians.

The cases announced Wednesday include strikes from last November through September. And they range from one or two civilians killed to a March strike near Mosul, Iraq, that killed 10 civilians.

The latest report, however, doesn't include two air attacks in Syria in recent months that may have each killed dozens. According to residents and international aid groups, an airstrike in July near Manbij, Syria, may have killed at least 56 civilians and wounded many more.

And a U.S. brigadier general has been appointed to lead an investigation in a September airstrike near Deir el-Zour, Syria, that may have unintentionally killed dozens of Syrian government forces.

The U.S. has said that it monitored the target for two days and deemed it valid before launching the strike. But it was halted when Russian officials called the coalition to say the attack was hitting personnel and vehicles that were part of the Syrian military.

There have been lingering questions about reports that the troops or people on the ground were not wearing uniforms and that they were armed, leading to confusion about who they might be. Other theories suggest they may have been conscripted troops or prisoners of some sort, but there have been no solid findings yet on those reports.

As of Wednesday, U.S. Central Command has received 257 allegations of airstrikes causing possible civilian casualties, and has concluded that 76 of the reports were valid and required further investigation. Of those 76, four were duplicates.

To date, 65 of the investigations have been completed, and about half of them have been publicly disclosed. Seven allegations remain open. </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. </s> The latest strike came as the United Nations urged all nations bombing jihadist targets in Syria to better distinguish between civilian and military targets. (Photo: Representational/AP)

Beirut: A US-led coalition air strike on the eastern Syrian town of Mayadeen early Friday killed at least 80 relatives of Islamic State group fighters, a monitoring group told .

"The toll includes 33 children. They were families seeking refuge in the town's municipal building," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "This is the highest toll for relatives of IS members in Syria," Abdel Rahman told.

The latest strike came as the United Nations urged all nations bombing jihadist targets in Syria to better distinguish between civilian and military targets.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said "all states" whose air forces are active in the anti-IS missions needed "to take much greater care to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians."

The Britain-based Observatory gathered information from civilian and medical sources on the ground in IS-held Mayadeen, which was facing its third day of fierce bombing.

According to the Observatory, 37 civilians were killed in coalition raids on the town on Thursday night, including 13 children, and another 15 had been killed in coalition strikes on Wednesday.

The 68-member coalition began bombing IS targets in Iraq in the summer of 2014, and expanded their operations to Syria on September 23 of that year.

This week, the Observatory reported the highest monthly civilian death toll for the coalition's operations in Syria. Between April 23 and May 23 of this year, coalition strikes killed a total of 225 civilians in Syria, including dozens of children.

The US-led alliance is backing twin ground offensives against IS's last main bastion cities: Raqa in northern Syria and Mosul in neighbouring Iraq.

On Thursday, a Pentagon investigation concluded that at least 105 civilians died in an anti-jihadist air strike on an IS weapons cache in Mosul in March. Prior to the new revelation, the US military had said coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria had "unintentionally" killed a total of 352 civilians since 2014. </s> GENEVA: The UN today urged all nations bombing jihadist targets in Syria to better distinguish between civilian and military targets , following reports that US-led coalition strikes killed dozens of non-combatants.Air raids on Islamic State group targets in Syria have left hundreds of civilians dead since 2014.The latest strikes that hit a series of residential buildings yesterday in Mayadeen, a town in Syria's eastern province of Deir Ezzor, killed at least 35 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said "all states" whose air forces are active in the anti-IS missions needed "to take much greater care to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians."The rights office had no specific information about yesterday's bombings.Zeid's spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva that identifying the air force responsible for civilian deaths is often difficult given the number of countries in the anti- IS coalition and the lack of credible information.The Pentagon released findings yesterday of an investigation that concluded at least 105 civilians died in an anti-jihadist air strike on an IS weapons cache in Mosul in March.Prior to that, the US military had said coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria had "unintentionally" killed a total of 352 civilians since 2014.Zeid underscored that civilians were now being hit by both sides in the conflict."The same civilians who are suffering indiscriminate shelling and summary executions by (IS), are also falling victim to the escalating air strikes", he said in a statement.The rights office has also received credible information that IS fighters slit the throats of eight people earlier this month who were accused of providing the coalition coordinates to guide strikes, Colville said."Scant attention is being paid by the outside world to the appalling predicament of the civilians trapped in (IS- held) areas," Zeid said. ( </s> Washington: A U.S. military investigation on Thursday acknowledged that more than 100 civilians were killed in a U.S. air strike on a building in the Iraqi city of Mosul in March during operations against Islamic State militants.

The probe concluded that the U.S. strike in the Al-Jadida district inadvertently triggered explosives placed in the building by Islamic State fighters, causing it to collapse.

Local officials and eyewitnesses have said as many as 240 people may have died in the strike.

It is believed to be one of the single largest incidents of civilian casualties since the U.S.-led coalition started operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler, who oversaw the investigation, told reporters that the March 17 strike was aimed at two Islamic State snipers.

However, the 500-pound bomb triggered explosives inside the concrete building, collapsing it onto civilians.

Isler said the United States and nearby Iraqi forces did not know there were civilians in the building or that it had been rigged with explosives.

He added that 101 civilians inside the building were killed, four civilians were killed in nearby, and 36 civilians were still not accounted for.

Prior to this investigation, the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State said that at least 352 civilians have been killed in strikes it carried out in Iraq and Syria since 2014. That estimate is far lower than those provided by outside groups. </s> Geneva: The UN on Friday urged all nations bombing jihadist targets in Syria to better distinguish between civilian and military targets, following reports that US-led coalition strikes killed dozens of non-combatants.

Air raids on Islamic State group targets in Syria have left hundreds of civilians dead since 2014.

The latest strikes that hit a series of residential buildings yesterday in Mayadeen, a town in Syria's eastern province of Deir Ezzor, killed at least 35 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said "all states" whose air forces are active in the anti-IS missions needed "to take much greater care to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians."

The rights office had no specific information about yesterday's bombings.

Zeid's spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva that identifying the air force responsible for civilian deaths is often difficult given the number of countries in the anti-IS coalition and the lack of credible information.

The Pentagon released findings on Thursday of an investigation that concluded at least 105 civilians died in an anti-jihadist air strike on an IS weapons cache in Mosul in March.

Prior to that, the US military had said coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria had "unintentionally" killed a total of 352 civilians since 2014.

Zeid underscored that civilians were now being hit by both sides in the conflict.

"The same civilians who are suffering indiscriminate shelling and summary executions by (IS), are also falling victim to the escalating air strikes", he said in a statement.

The rights office has also received credible information that IS fighters slit the throats of eight people earlier this month who were accused of providing the coalition coordinates to guide strikes, Colville said.

"Scant attention is being paid by the outside world to the appalling predicament of the civilians trapped in (IS-held) areas," Zeid said. </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> Geneva: The UN on Friday urged all nations bombing jihadist targets in Syria to better distinguish between civilian and military targets, following reports that US-led coalition strikes killed dozens of non-combatants.

Air raids on Islamic State group targets in Syria have left hundreds of civilians dead since 2014.

The latest strikes that hit a series of residential buildings on Thursday in Mayadeen, a town in Syria`s eastern province of Deir Ezzor, killed at least 35 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra`ad Al Hussein said "all states" whose air forces are active in the anti-IS missions needed "to take much greater care to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians."

The rights office had no specific information about Thursday`s bombings.

Zeid`s spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva that identifying the air force responsible for civilian deaths is often difficult given the number of countries in the anti-IS coalition and the lack of credible information.

The Pentagon released findings on Thursday of an investigation that concluded at least 105 civilians died in an anti-jihadist air strike on an IS weapons cache in Mosul in March.

Prior to that, the US military had said coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria had "unintentionally" killed a total of 352 civilians since 2014.

 Zeid underscored that civilians were now being hit by both sides in the conflict.

"The same civilians who are suffering indiscriminate shelling and summary executions by (IS), are also falling victim to the escalating air strikes", he said in a statement.

The rights office has also received credible information that IS fighters slit the throats of eight people earlier this month who were accused of providing the coalition coordinates to guide strikes, Colville said.

"Scant attention is being paid by the outside world to the appalling predicament of the civilians trapped in (IS-held) areas," Zeid said.
The United States military states that it has inadvertently killed 64 civilians in air strikes on targets in Syria and Iraq over the past year.