The U.S. military hid two 2019 airstrikes that killed up to 64 women and children from the public, The New York Times reports. U.S. Central Command said that 16 ISIS fighters were killed in the strikes on the village of Baghuz along with four confirmed civilians. The remaining 60 people, all women and children, could not be classified as either, according to Central Command, because it was unclear whether the women and children could have been combatants. Central Command acknowledged the strikes for the first time this week and said they were justified and “legitimate self-defense.” One military analyst, watching the bombs fall via a drone, reportedly wrote, “Who dropped that?” after a jet dropped a bomb on a group of people already identified as women and children. Another responded, “We just dropped on 50 women and children.” The Defense Department never conducted an independent investigation into the two strikes, despite a lawyer’s warning that a possible war crime may have occurred.
Read it at The New York Times
