While
the official Pentagon reports on civilian deaths claim far fewer
deaths, NGOs have been consistently documenting a massive number of
civilian bystanders killed in America’s air war in Iraq and Syria.
The
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the total at 2,617 civilians
killed in US-led strikes just in Syria. This included 615 children
and 443 women. It also doesn’t include the much larger tolls
believed to have been inflicted in Iraq.
The
Pentagon has put the overall toll closer to 700 civilians killed
across both countries, and they also reckon a large majority in Iraq.
Within Syria, the largest number of civilians were killed in Raqqa,
but it also includes civilians slain in Manbij, as well as elsewhere
around the country.
Despite
the US struggles with providing anything resembling accurate death
tolls for their airstrikes, both the Syrian Observatory and Airwars
have proven quite successful at offering estimates that are seen as
closely in-line with what’s been reported by the media and by
civilians on the ground.
The
Pentagon, by contrast, tends to operate on wishful thinking,
insisting any really large tolls are “not credible” and excluding
them from the reports, despite many of those having substantial
evidence of having occurred.
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