Pentagon: US strikes killed 120 civilians in 2018

United States military actions killed about 120 civilians and injured 65 others in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia last year, the Pentagon said in a report on Thursday (May 2), though the figures were far lower than those reported by watchdog groups, Reuters reported.

The annual report, mandated by Congress, showed a significant drop from nearly 800 civilians killed in 2017, in part because the pace of operations had slowed against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

During operations in Afghanistan in 2018, 76 civilians were killed, with 42 killed in total in Iraq and Syria, and two civilians killed during a strike in Somalia, according to the nearly 20-page report, which tracks air and ground military operations.

Still, the civilian casualties in the report were far lower than those reported by watchdog groups.

Amnesty International and the monitoring group Airwars, in a report published late in April, said the US-backed assault to drive ISIS from Raqqa in 2017 killed more than 1,600 civilians.

In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that revoked an Obama-era policy requiring US intelligence officials to report civilian deaths in drone strikes outside of active war zones.

President Barack Obama put the policy in place in 2016 as part of an effort to be more transparent about drone strikes after he had dramatically increased their use against Islamist militants.