The US has admitted that mistakes led to a deadly strike on Syrian troops - an incident that highlighted the chaotic situation of a conflict involving multiple factions and forces. Yet it has claimed the strike did not constitute a war crime because the mistake was unintentional.
In September, the US acknowledged that coalition warplanes had carried out airstrikes that led to the deaths of at least 62 troops, injured a further 100 and opened the for an attack by ISIS.
On Tuesday, Pentagon officials said the attack, involving aircraft from the UK, US, Denmark and Australia, had been intended to hit ISIS forces. The operation was halted following intervention from Russia, which informed the US they were hitting Syrian forces.
Brig Gen Richard Coe claimed that because the mistake was not deliberate or a result of negligence, the attacks were not illegal under international law.
According to USA Today, Mr Coe said the mistake had its genesis in the fact that the forces the coalition warplanes struck, looked like ISIS fighters.
“In many ways, these forces looked and acted like the ISIS forces the coalition has been targeting for the last two years,” he said.
“The decision to strike these targets was made in accordance with the law of armed conflict and the applicable rules of engagement. But we concluded based upon post-strike analysis that a number of “human factors” resulted in incorrect identification of forces on the ground.”
“In this instance, we did not rise to the high standard we hold ourselves to, and we must do better than this each and every time,” Lt Gen Jeff Harrigian, commander of US air forces in the Middle East, said in a statement.
US warplanes have been conducting airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq since August 2014. Some Western states have also participated in some of the strikes in Iraq.
Since September 2014, the US and some of its allies have been carrying out airstrikes against ISIS inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.
The US-led coalition has done little to stop ISIS advances in Syria and Iraq. Some analysts have criticized the military campaign, saying the strikes are only meant to benefit US weapons manufacturers.
Syria has been gripped by a foreign-backed militancy since March 2011 and ISIS terrorists still control parts of the country and neighboring Iraq.
According to UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, more than 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria and about 23 million displaced within or beyond the Arab country’s borders. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.
