The Pentagon has launched a formal investigation into a strike in Syria, following allegations that the strike may have killed a civilian, not the senior al Qaeda leader the U.S. had targeted.
“The civilian casualty credibility assessment process has become an AR 15-6 investigation,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement. “Maj. Gen. Matthew McFarlane, commander of CJTF-OIR, appointed a general officer as the investigating officer, effective June 23, 2023. CENTCOM is committed to the objectives in the Secretary of Defense’s Civilian Mitigation and Response Action Plan.”
Initially, Central Command said the May 3 strike had targeted a senior al Qaeda member in northwest Syria, but in the days after the strike, the family and neighbors of 56-year-old Lotfi Hassan Misto, who was allegedly killed by the strike, told the Washington Post that Misto had merely been tending his sheep and had no connections to al Qaeda. Central Command began an initial probe of allegations the strike killed a civilian after the Washington Post published its story.
Formalizing the investigation requires the investigating general officer to gather the facts and produce a report on the findings and issue recommendations.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tasked the Pentagon with reducing civilian casualties in U.S. military operations and released an action plan in 2022 that called for more standardized processes for sharing data and processes to reduce civilian casualties.
The action plan came in the aftermath of the erroneous drone strike that killed 10 civilians, including seven children, during the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. The Pentagon did not end up punishing any of the military personnel involved in that strike.
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