U.S. Says No Evidence Syria Airstrike Killed Civilians
The United States announced this week that in a recent airstrike against the Islamic State in Syria, U.S. fighter jets struck a grain silo, but no indicated of civilian fatality has been confirmed.
The U.S. airstrike was reportedly targeting an area that contained Islamic State vehicles near a grain silo in the northern Syrian city of Manbij.
Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman at the U.S. military's Central Command, said in a statement that the U.S. will be looking into reports that civilians were killed in the recent airstrike. "We are aware of media reports alleging civilian casualties, but have no evidence to corroborate these claims," Ryder said.
The military announcement comes after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that civilian workers were killed in the recent airstrike.
"These were the workers at the silos. They provide food for the people," Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory, told Reuters. Abdulrahman could not quote a specific figure in alleged civilian deaths yet.
"They killed only civilians (at the silo), workers at the site. There was no ISIS inside," Abdulrahman continued, adding that the airstrikes "destroyed the food that was stored there."
Last week, U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the U.S. had been collaborating with its Arab allies to conduct the airstrikes over the past two weeks. Dempsey added that although civilian deaths are unlikely, they are not impossible.
"Our allies in the region are performing just as well as we are on the issue of precision and reducing the possibility of collateral damage," Dempsey said. "Of course you can't reduce it to zero."
