|
WASHINGTON, July 28 (Xinhua) -- There have been 14 civilians killed in U.S. airstrikes conducted in Iraq and Syria from July 28, 2015 to April 29 this year, the U.S. Central Command reported Thursday.
"We deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from our airstrikes and express our sympathies to those affected," the Command said in a news release.
The civilian deaths occurred in six separate U.S. airstrikes during the period, it claimed.
On April 29 this year, four civilians were killed in Mosul of Iraq during a U.S. airstrike targeting Neil Prakash, an external operations facilitator of the terror group Islamic State (IS), according to the release.
Three civilians were killed in each of three other U.S. airstrikes, including one near Idlib, Syria on July 28, 2015, one near Al Qaim of Iraq on Feb. 15, 2016, and one in Mosul on April 5, 2016, the release said.
One civilian was killed in Sharqat of Iraq on April 26, 2016 during a strike on an IS checkpoint, it said.
Only one civilian was reportedly wounded in a strike on Feb. 16, 2016 in Ar Rayhaniyah, near Mosul.
The U.S.-led counterterrorism coalition "takes all reasonable measures to avoid non-combatant casualties during the course of military operations," the release alleged.
The Central Command did not elaborate if the strikes were conducted by manned jets or drones.
The White House recently released a report on the civilian fatalities in U.S. drone strikes from 2009 to 2015, estimating that some 100 civilians were killed during 473 U.S. drone strikes in regions where the U.S. is not at war.
But human rights groups following the U.S. drone strikes criticized the report for apparently underestimating the number of real civilian casualties in such strikes.
A recent report from the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a non-governmental organization, shows that the U.S. drones have caused 492 to 1,100 civilian deaths in Pakistan and other countries since 2002.
