The Post report relies heavily on figures from the airstrike watchdog Airwars—without stating the group’s actual casualty numbers.
Aftermath of US led air strikes in Raqqa (Photo: @Raqqa_SL/Twitter)
By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-19-2020
The Washington Post on Wednesday published an extraordinary interactive report that names hundreds of civilians killed by coalition airstrikes during the U.S.-led war against the so-called Islamic State.
The report, which contains harrowing survivor testimonies, draws upon data from the U.S. military and the U.K.-based journalistic monitor group Airwars to name each victim, as well as when and where they were killed. The paper mentions “thousands” of civilian casualties since President Barack Obama launched the war against ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria in 2014, but focuses only on the approximately 1,400 deaths acknowledged by both the Pentagon and Airwars. Continue reading
