US admits airstrike in Syria may have killed civilians

The US admits civilians may have been killed in an airstrike allegedly targeting Daesh militants in Syria.

According to the US Central Command, the airstrike launched on Tuesday on a Daesh weapons facility near their de facto capital, Raqqah, “may have resulted in civilian casualties.”

The statement, released as part of a post-strike assessment, said a decision would be made later on “whether an investigation is needed.”

CENTCOM claimed that a non-military vehicle drove into the target area after the airstrike had been launched, saying that “the vehicle's occupants may have perished as a result of the strike”.

This announcement came after the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that 6,004 people had been killed in the US-led coalition airstrikes in Syria during a period of 23 months, from September 23, 2014 to August 23, 2016.

Last month, the US was heavily criticized for its airstrikes even by the so-called Syrian National Coalition (SNC). 

President of the SNC, Anas Alabdah, called on the US to suspend its airstrikes until it performs a thorough investigation into an attack near the volatile northern city of Manbij that killed at least 73 civilians and at most 205. This was dubbed the worst US-caused civilian casualty disaster of the so-called war against the Daesh Takfiri group.

However, the US said it would not pause airstrikes in Syria despite such appeals.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria.

The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.

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