Karama (not Karma) is (or was) a small town in Syria that was the target of a U.S. Predator drone strike in 2017. The strike mission was initiated and controlled by a small, top secret U.S. Special Operations Unit known as "Talon Anvil." This is from the New York Times:
quote
One morning before dawn in early March 2017, Talon Anvil sent a Predator drone over a Syrian farming town called Karama to cripple enemy positions in the area in preparation for an offensive by allies a week later.
For the former Air Force intelligence officer, the mission stands out as an example of Talon Anvil’s flawed way of operating, and how military leaders seemed to look the other way.
At about 4 a.m., he said, the drone arrived over the town’s flat-roofed houses. His Air Force intelligence team was watching from a secure operations center in the United States. A Talon Anvil operator typed a message into the chat room the cell shared with intelligence analysts: All civilians have fled the area. Anyone left is an enemy fighter. Find lots of targets for us today because we want to go Winchester.
Going Winchester meant expending all of the drone’s missiles and 500-pound bombs.
As the drone circled, the town appeared to be asleep, the former officer said. Even with infrared sensors, the team did not see movement. Talon Anvil focused in on a building and typed in the chat that a tip from ground forces indicated that the building was an enemy training center. Sensors suggested an enemy cellphone or radio might be in the neighborhood but was unable to pinpoint it to a single block, let alone a single building.
Talon Anvil did not wait for confirmation, and ordered a self-defense strike, the former officer said. The Predator dropped a 500-pound bomb through the roof.
As the smoke cleared, the former officer said, his team stared at their screens in dismay. The infrared cameras showed women and children staggering out of the partly collapsed building, some missing limbs, some dragging the dead.
The intelligence analysts began taking screen shots and tallying the casualties. They sent an initial battle damage assessment to Talon Anvil: 23 dead or severely wounded, 30 lightly wounded, very likely civilians. Talon Anvil paused only long enough to acknowledge the message, the former officer said, then pressed on to the next target.
The former Air Force officer said he immediately reported the civilian casualties to Operation Inherent Resolve’s operations center, then called the center’s liaison officer on the red line. He said he never heard back and saw no evidence that any action was ever taken.
Operation Inherent Resolve made a commitment to investigate and report every case of civilian casualties publicly, but nothing in its reports matches the incident. The true toll of the strike in Karama remains uncertain.
That's an excerpt from a "longish" report that's just been published in the New York Times.
"Civilian Deaths Mounted as Secret Unit Pounded ISIS"
quote
An American strike cell alarmed its partners as it raced to defeat the enemy.
Before that, at the end of November, there was this:
"Pentagon Chief Orders New Inquiry Into U.S. Airstrike That Killed Dozens in Syria" Eric Schmitt and Dave Philipps for the New York Times; November 29, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/202...airstrike-syria.html
How it starts:
quote
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Monday ordered a new high-level investigation into a U.S. airstrike in Syria in 2019 that killed dozens of women and children, the Pentagon said.
The investigation by Gen. Michael X. Garrett, the four-star head of the Army’s Forces Command, will examine the strike, which was carried out by a shadowy Special Operations unit called Task Force 9. It will also look into the military’s initial inquiries into the strike, Pentagon officials said.
General Garrett will have 90 days to review the inquiries and further investigate record-keeping errors, reports of civilian casualties, whether any violations of laws of war occurred, whether any recommendations from previous reviews were carried out, and whether anyone should be held accountable, the officials said.
Mr. Austin’s decision comes after a New York Times investigation this month that described allegations that top officers and civilian officials had sought to conceal the casualties from the airstrike. The attack, which took place near the Syrian town of Baghuz on March 18, 2019, was part of the final battle against Islamic State fighters in a shard of a once-sprawling religious state across Iraq and Syria. It was among the largest episodes of civilian casualties in the yearslong war against ISIS, but the U.S. military had never publicly acknowledged it.
How it ends:
quote
In addition to the new investigation into the Syria strike, Mr. Austin is still weighing newly submitted plans from top commanders on how to mitigate civilian casualties in military operations worldwide. Those steps were recommended in a separate investigation into a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 29 that killed 10 civilians, including seven children.
Those recommendations are expected to be included in a larger Pentagon policy overhaul intended to mitigate civilians casualties that is now underway, Defense Department officials said . . .
The opening salvo from the New York Times came 16 days before that:
quote
The military never conducted an independent investigation into a 2019 bombing on the last bastion of the Islamic State, despite concerns about a secretive commando force.
Ya' know... accidents happen. I'm truly sorry. But the NY Slimes is going to spin this in the worst way possible, because that's what they do. (And, you know, "F*ck Trump".)
But 3000+ casualties in NY, in 2001, and hundreds of other civilian casualties, before and after, were not accidents.
These are among the most serious allegations that I've ever come across in my years as a U.S. National Security and Foreign Policy "maven."
I hope the investigation that has reportedly (in this report) been opened by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is probing and comprehensive.
These are allegations, that if confirmed, actually do harm to the memory of the victims of 9-11 and to the sacrifices of all Americans and their partners and allies in the long running effort to contain and ultimately root out violent Islamic extremism.
The time frame of the allegations actually predates the day that Trump took the oath of office, going back to at least the final years of Obama's presidency.
I haven't read all of this reporting, but I did not see any reference to Trump personally, or to the office of the President, in the part that I did read.
To borrow what I believe was the last public words before retirement from Bob "needs no introduction" Mueller, these are "allegations that deserve the attention of every American."
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 12-18-2021).]
The New York Times was just awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in the category of International Reporting for a series of reports that revealed the dimensions of previously undisclosed civilian casualties and "collateral damage" from thousands of American military airstrikes over the years.
The reports that I cited at the beginning of this thread are part of that series.
I'm surprised he can still type, with all that hair on his hands. ==============
Regarding the original topic... You have to depend on your intel. Or not. Occasionally, there will be eff-ups. I wouldn't blab my eff-ups to the world, simply for security reasons, if nothing else. Nevermind that the enemy chooses to blend themselves in with the general population, so that it's more difficult to pick them out. This has been the way they seem to do business, since Desert Storm. The cowardice of the Arab "fighters" just amazes me.
As I mentioned above, 3+ thousand American deaths in NY, 21 years ago, were not an accident.
[This message has been edited by Raydar (edited 05-11-2022).]
