White House exempts Syria airstrikes from tight standards on civilian deaths By Michael Isikoff
The White House has acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq.
A White House statement to Yahoo News confirming the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria’s Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.
The village has been described by Syrian rebel commanders as a reported stronghold of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front where U.S officials believed members of the so-called Khorasan group were plotting attacks against international aircraft.
But at a briefing for members and staffers of the House Foreign Affairs Committee late last week, Syrian rebel commanders described women and children being hauled from the rubble after an errant cruise missile destroyed a home for displaced civilians.
Aftermath of U.S. airstrikes in Idlib, Syria
Images of badly injured children also appeared on YouTube, helping to fuel anti-U.S. protests in a number of Syrian villages last week.
U.S. Military, Partner Nations Conduct Airstrikes in Syria | DoD |
U.S. military forces and partner nations, including Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, undertook military action against ISIL terrorists in Syria overnight, according to a U.S. Central Command news release.
Warplanes and ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles struck “fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance center, supply trucks and armed vehicles,” CentCom said.
Washington also said U.S. forces had acted alone to launch eight strikes in another area of Syria against the “Khorasan Group”, an al Qaeda unit U.S. officials have described in recent days as posing a threat similar to that from Islamic State.
Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, took part in the second and third waves of attacks. The Arab countries’ actions ranged from combat air patrols to strikes on targets, but added that the majority of strikes were carried out by the U.S. military.
