Pentagon Chief Orders New Inquiry Into U.S. Airstrike That Killed Dozens in Syria

But Central Command officials went no further and did not remind a subordinate military headquarters in Baghdad of what Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the Central Command, described it as “an administrative oversight”. As a result, senior military officials in Iraq and Florida never reviewed the attack, and the investigation technically remained pending the Times investigation.

Mr. Austin, who became Secretary of Defense that year, received a secret briefing on the attack and how the military handled it this month from General McKenzie, who oversaw the air war in Syria.

In an email to the Senate Armed Forces Committee earlier this spring, the judicial officer who witnessed the strike warned that “senior US military officials deliberately and systematically evaded the deliberate strike process” and that there was a good chance that “the highest die The government was not aware of what was happening on the ground. “

A spokesman for the Armed Forces Committee, Chip Unruh, said the panel “remains actively involved and continues to deal with the matter.” Rep. Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington and chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives, announced this month that his panel would also look into the strike and the military’s handling of it.

The Times investigation found that the bombing by the Air Force F-15E attack jets was caused by Task Force 9, a unit made up largely of the elite of the US Army’s Delta Force. The task force was responsible for ground operations in Syria and worked closely with Syrian Kurdish and Arab militias. Military officials speaking to the Times said the secret task force bypassed oversight by claiming the vast majority of their attacks required immediate action to protect Allied forces from an imminent threat. Military officers often said there was no such threat.

Main results of the Baghuz air raid investigation

Map 1 of 5

Uncover the Truth. For several months, the New York Times compiled the details of a 2019 air strike in Baghuz, Syria, one of the greatest civilian casualties in the war against Islamic State. Here are the most important findings from the investigation:

The US military carried out the attack. Task Force 9, the secret special unit responsible for ground operations in Syria, called the attack. The attack began when an F-15E fighter jet hit Baghuz with a 500 pound bomb. Five minutes later, the F-15E dropped two 2,000-pound bombs.

The death toll has been downplayed. US Central Command recently confirmed that 80 people, including civilians, were killed in the air strike. Although the death toll was seen almost instantly by military officials, the rules for investigating the potential crime were not followed.

Reports were delayed, cleaned up, and classified. The Department of Defense’s independent inspector general opened an investigation, but the report on the results stalled and any reference to the strike was removed.

US-led coalition forces bulldozed the site of the explosion. Civilian observers who came to the strike area the next day reported that they found heaps of dead women and children. In the days following the bombing, coalition forces overran the area, which was quickly leveled.

After the Times reported its findings to US Central Command, the command confirmed the attack for the first time. A statement said the 80 deaths were justified because the task force launched a self-defense attack against a group of fighters who posed an imminent threat to the Allied forces on the ground.

Central Command told the Times that the attack included three guided bombs: a 500-pound bomb that hit the first group and two 2,000-pound bombs that targeted people who fled the first explosion. The order later corrected itself, saying all three bombs were 500 pound ammunition.