America ‘hid Syria airstrike that killed dozens of women and children’

The US military has been accused of covering up airstrikes that killed dozens of women and children during a battle with Isis fighters, with the incident cited by air force lawyers as a possible war crime.

At least 80 people were killed by bombs dropped by an F-15E jet on an Isis camp in the town of Baghuz, where the terrorist group made a last stand against coalition forces in March 2019.

According to The New York Times, drone video showed the jet dropping a 500lb bomb on a crowd of mostly women and children huddled on the banks of the Euphrates river. As the survivors tried to scramble away, the jet dropped two 2,000lb bombs, killing most of them.

The strikes, five days before Isis was declared militarily defeated in Syria, may have involved one of the largest civilian death tolls in missions against the jihadists but were not acknowledged until this weekend.

Ordered by a classified US special forces unit in support of Syrian ground forces, the bombings were watched by observers at the US military’s al-Udeid air base in Qatar. “Who dropped that?” one typed on a secure chat system after the first bomb. “We just dropped on 50 women and children,” responded another.

Lieutenant-Colonel Dean Korsak, a US air force lawyer, called for an investigation into the incident as a possible war crime, but the military attempted to “downplay” the incident, The New York Times said. The defence department’s inspector general did open an inquiry later, but its report was “stripped” of any mention of the bombings, the paper reported.

“Leadership just seemed so set on burying this. No one wanted anything to do with it,” said Gene Tate, who worked on the case for the inspector general’s office.

The area was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the day of the attack, with the site of the airstrike bulldozed in an apparent bid to hide any evidence.

US Central Command said in a statement that 80 people were killed, including 16 Isis fighters and four civilians. It said it was unclear if the other 60 people were civilians, as “multiple armed women and at least one armed child were observed”. It defended the strikes as “legitimate self defence”, and proportional in the context of the heated battle, during which there were so many Isis fighters and suicide bombers attacking the SDF positions that the US air force drones sent to assist ran out of missiles.

“We abhor the loss of innocent life and take all possible measures to prevent them,” Captain Bill Urban, chief spokesman for Central Command, said in the statement. “In this case, we self-reported and investigated the strike according to our own evidence, and take full responsibility for the unintended loss of life.”