United States (US) Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, has ordered four-star General Michael X. Garrett to review a 2019 strike carried out by the US military in Syria that caused dozens of civilian casualties, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that General Garrett, who heads the US Army Forces Command, has been assigned 90 days to complete his review on the strike, which was carried out by a classified American Special Operations unit called Task Force 9. Garrett’s review will assess civilian casualties, compliance with the law of war, record-keeping errors, the status of implementation of any recommendations from previous reviews, and whether anyone should be held accountable.
The order from Austin came after The New York Times (NYT) published an investigative report last month that claimed that the US strike in Baghuz, Syria, which aimed to target members of the Islamic State who were hiding in a nearby dirt field, killed up to 80 civilians, including women and children.
The Times reported that although a military legal officer had quickly flagged the strike as a possible war crime that required a thorough, independent investigation, the military, at various levels, had attempted to bury the incident and downplay the death toll. In addition, the findings of an initial report made by the Defence Department’s independent inspector general were “stalled” and omitted any mention of the strike.
“The death toll was downplayed. Reports were delayed, sanitised and classified. United States-led coalition forces bulldozed the blast site. And top leaders were not notified,” the NYT report stated. It also revealed that almost immediately after the strike, an Air Force lawyer had ordered the F-15E squadron and the drone crew to preserve all video footage and other evidence, indicating the severity of the incident.
Despite the Baghuz strike being one of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the US’ war against the caliphate, the military had never publicly acknowledged the incident. When the Times presented its findings to the US Central Command last month, the Command made its first official acknowledgement of the airstrikes but said that the strike was justified.
The Command also said in its statement that the bombs killed 16 fighters and four civilians and that the civilian status of the other 60 casualties was not clear, in part because women and children in the Islamic State have been known to sometimes take up arms.
Following the release of the NYT report, US defence chief Austin requested a briefing on the matter from General Frank McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command. An initial investigation concluded by McKenzie’s command reported that the strike constituted “legitimate self-defence” in support of Syrian partner forces who were under fire from the caliphate.
Austin’s orders come after he vowed to overhaul military procedures and hold top military officers responsible for civilian harm during a news conference last month. The defence chief, however, did not acknowledge any systemic issues that allowed continued civilian casualties on battlefields in Syria and Afghanistan.