Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.
The investigation organized by the US Department of Defense did not establish any guilt of the Pentagon military personnel in the deaths of over 50 people, including civilians, as a result of an airstrike by the US Air Force in Syria in 2019. The results of the investigation were presented at a briefing on Tuesday by the head of the Pentagon press service, John Kirby.
“There was no malicious intent or criminal mistake. Although I found shortcomings in following the established protocol, there is no evidence that these shortcomings were malicious or were intended to conceal any decisions and actions,” the conclusion of the Commander-in-chief of the Army, General Michael Garrett, who reviewed the incident on behalf of the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, said in a statement released by the Ministry of Defense.
Garrett said that during the incident “four civilians were killed, in particular one woman and three children, and 15 were injured – 11 women and four children.” Another 52 dead were adult men, according to the Pentagon, they were members of the terrorist group “Islamic State” (banned in the Russian Federation).
The conclusion explains that the identified shortcomings relate to the fact that the American servicemen involved in the strikes did not inform the internal supervisory authority in a timely manner about the possible death of civilians. Speaking about whether the military can be held accountable for the delay in providing information about civilian victims, Kirby said that this is a “hypothetical question” to which he does not answer.
He also said that the Pentagon regrets and apologizes in connection with the incident, but sees no reason to bring those responsible to justice. And in Al-Baguz (the city in northeastern Syria where the incident occurred), according to Kirby, none of the servicemen were dismissed.
In November 2021, The New York Times reported on the Pentagon’s concealment of information about an airstrike that led to significant human casualties. The publication conducted an investigation and found that on March 18, 2019, a US Air Force F-15 fighter jet, on the instructions of Task Force 9 special forces, dropped an aerial bomb on a group of people who were in a field near the city of El-Baguz. The coordinates for the air strike were then transmitted by the commander of the US ground forces in the area, who had previously received information that there were no civilians at the point of the planned bombing.
According to the newspaper, the Pentagon leadership downplayed the damage caused, an independent investigation of the incident was frozen, and information about the airstrike itself was not made public. The newspaper’s journalists handed over all the collected information to the command of the US Armed Forces. They acknowledged the fact of the airstrike, as well as the death of civilians, but said that such an impact was justified. However, against the background of great public attention to the publication, the head of the Pentagon instructed General Garrett to conduct a new study of what happened. Judging by John Kirby’s report, it has not changed the point of view of the military department.