Up to 51 "unintentional civilian deaths" from Coalition airstrikes - report

WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (KUNA) -- Since Coalition operations against the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq began in 2014, coalition partners have returned over 95 percent of IS-held land to local populations and governance, a report showed Thursday.
The effort has also liberated 6.9 million Syrians and Iraqis, US Central Command (CENTCOM) indicated in a report.
In the month of September, CJTF-OIR carried more than 344 open reports of possible civilian casualties from previous months and received 302 new reports resulting from Coalition strikes (artillery or air) in support of partner force operations to defeat IS in Iraq and Syria.
It added that during this period, the Coalition completed the assessment of 127 reports, out of which 105 were assessed to be non-credible, six were assessed to be duplicates of previous reports, and 16 were assessed to be credible, "resulting in 51 unintentional civilian deaths." It noted that to date, based on information available, CJTF-OIR assesses at least 786 civilians have been unintentionally killed by Coalition strikes since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve.
The Coalition conducted a total of 27,566 strikes that included 56,099 separate engagements between September 2014 and September 2017. During this period, the total number of reports of possible civilian casualties was 1,266, the report showed.
It further indicated that the total number of credible reports of civilian casualties during this time period was 194. The percentage of engagements that resulted in a report of possible civilian casualties was 2.26, whereas the percentage of engagements that resulted in a credible report of civilian casualties was 0.35. (end) si.hb