The U.S. is conducting a new investigation into claims that Syrian civilians were killed and maimed in a U.S. strike during its high-profile raid five years ago targeting ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The repeat review comes after NPR reporting of new accounts that challenged the Defense Department’s original account of the Oct. 26, 2019, operation. Several Democratic members of Congress also called on the Pentagon last year to reexamine the case following NPR’s reporting.
In a statement, U.S. Central Command told NPR two weeks ago that it is conducting a “detailed review” of the operation and is “nearing the end” of its investigation. It said the additional review would make a “final determination” of the civilian status of the survivor and victims of the strike. This is the second review the U.S. has conducted into the 2019 raid.
“I think it's extremely significant that, given how much the Baghdadi raid was celebrated, that the Pentagon is now taking this step to do a new investigation,” said Joanna Naples-Mitchell, a New York-based lawyer with the Zomia Center, which advocates for civilians harmed in military operations. She is representing the Syrian survivor.
The first U.S. investigation dismissed accounts reported by NPR
The U.S. maintained that it killed no civilians when special operations forces raided Baghdadi’s Syrian hideout, leading him to blow himself up. Then-President Donald Trump called the operation "impeccable,” and military officials said troops protected noncombatants.
NPR reported accounts from Syria that three agricultural laborers were driving home from work at an olive press when U.S. helicopter fire killed two of the men and maimed a third, blowing off his right hand.
In 2020, the Pentagon investigated and dismissed the accounts reported by NPR. It contended the Syrian men were enemy combatants who ignored warning shots as their van approached U.S. ground troops. In a statement then, CENTCOM said U.S. forces “employed appropriate, necessary and proportionately scaled use of force in response to actions against U.S. forces, which turned lethal after warnings were not heeded.”
But the Pentagon’s own confidential 2020 report on the incident, obtained by NPR in late 2022, revealed that the warning shots came mere seconds before the airstrike. That undermined the Pentagon’s claim that the men ignored the shots.
In addition, in March 2023, NPR found U.S. officials did not compile intelligence or personal information about the victims to support the Pentagon’s claim they were combatants.
Last year, NPR reported these details, including audio interviews with relatives of the Syrian victims who said the men killed were uninvolved civilians.
The Pentagon launched a new investigation following NPR’s reporting
In 2022, following New York Times investigations into U.S. military airstrikes that killed civilians, the Pentagon launched an initiative to improve the way it addresses civilian casualties.
In 2023, following NPR’s reporting, CENTCOM asked NPR for further details on its interviews with relatives of the Syrian victims. NPR provided CENTCOM with a transcript of its published interviews and reporting on the case.
The Zomia Center said it provided the Defense Department with documentation it says attests to the civilian status of the airstrike survivor, including receipts showing he was transporting olives to an olive press in the days before the airstrikes.
“CENTCOM is committed to thorough and accurate reviews of all allegations of civilian casualties and will consider all new first-hand information it receives, from NPR or any other source,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
Now, the Pentagon has acknowledged for the first time that it is conducting a formal investigation.
“ I feel optimistic,” says Barakat Ahmad Barakat, the airstrike survivor, about the new investigation. “It’s been five years that I’ve been waiting and hoping the American Army, the humane people, will sympathize with my situation. I am not lying. I am telling the truth.”
Syrian survivor struggles five years after the airstrike
The 2019 strike left Barakat with a permanent disability. His right arm was amputated as a result of injury and his left hand lost some of its mobility.
In a voice message from his home in northwest Syria, he says he has not found work due to his disability, and that his family has not eaten meat in a year.
“I was injured in a military operation by mistake, and no one has acknowledged it for five years,” Barakat says. “What have I and my children done to be in a situation where we cannot buy a loaf of bread?”
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