In the US it is reported that during the military operation against the terrorist organization ISIS, a special American force operating in Syria and Iraq killed a large number of innocent civilians. The publication describes how the army covered up the affair
The New York Times revealed yesterday (Monday) that a secret and special force of the United States military operating against ISIS in Syria and Iraq killed a large number of innocent civilians, and tried to whitewash it.
The force, Talon Anvil, operated from military offices in Syria and Iraq between 2014 and 2019, but its existence has not been documented in military records. A long line of military and intelligence officials, present and past, told the paper that the secret cell’s activities worried other bodies in the military because its fighters “killed people who had no role in the conflict: farmers trying to cultivate their land, children on the streets, families fleeing the fighting and villagers hiding in buildings.”
“They were cruelly efficient and good at their job,” said a former Air Force intelligence officer who worked on hundreds of the force’s covert missions from 2016 to 2018. But they also did a lot of very bad attacks. “
Another officer told the New York Times that while he was tired of working with that force, some of the assaults were etched in his memory. He said in 2016, three people working in an olive grove outside the city of Manbaj were killed. Larry Lewis, a former adviser to the State Department and the Pentagon, says the number of civilians killed in Syria has increased significantly each year the special force has been active. Lewis, who authored a 2018 report on civilian casualties and was exposed to State Department data, told the New York Times that the number of civilian casualties in Syria at the time was ten times higher than the data recorded from similar operations in Afghanistan.
Despite its disproportionate share of ISIS attacks, which used 112,000 bombs and missiles, the unit was sometimes tiny, with only 20 people.
Most of its operations were approved by junior officers from the ranks of special forces, who sat in their war rooms. This policy was part of an initiative to accelerate the international coalition’s struggle against ISIS. General Stephen Townsend, who commanded the United States war on ISIS between 2016 and 2017 and implemented the policies ordered by then-President Donald Trump, rejected claims that the cell acted recklessly or indifferently to human life. He claimed that the victims were the result of “bad luck happening in the war”.
Although the U.S. military is keeping records of UAV attacks, one source quoted by the New York Times as saying that members of the Secret Service had moved the cameras before launching. Aimed after it was repeated over and over again. Operators also pressured experts, who watched the UAV footage after the attacks, to report that they had seen weapons or other evidence to justify the attack. When they refused, the cell members simply asked for another expert.