It Was Just a Mistake

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 56 civilians were killed when their convoy of vehicles attempted to slip out of an area north of the city of Manbij in the predawn darkness, as U.S.-backed forces pushed forward in an increasingly bloody offensive in the area. In a brief phone interview, a representative from the Britain-based organization said that while coalition aircraft were believed to be responsible for the air raid, the group suspected it was a “100 percent mistake.”

Airwars, a nonprofit that tracks claims of civilian casualties resulting from the international air campaign against ISIS, said incoming reports indicated the death toll may prove to be well over 100 civilians — potentially making it the largest single loss of civilian life resulting from coalition airstrikes since the U.S.-led campaign to destroy ISIS began nearly two years ago. Tuesday’s reports were the latest in a string of recent incidents in which coalition aircraft have been implicated in the deaths of civilians in the Manbij area.

[...]

While the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and others reported civilians killed as they fled ISIS, an account published by Syria Direct, a nonprofit media organization, reported that six missiles fired by coalition forces at 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning struck a school in the village of Tokhar, a short distance northeast of Manbij, killing “anywhere from 65 to 160 people.” Sources on the ground told the outlet the “school housed displaced people from neighboring villages.”

  The Intercept

It's hard to see why they hate us. Unless they're just jealous.

The Telegraph, which reported 85 civilians killed in Tuesday’s air raid as they fled Tokhar, suggested today’s operation was the first mission launched from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey since the facility was temporarily shut down after last week’s failed coup.

As long as that's back up and running, the tens of thousands of Erdoğan cleansees are hardly worth mentioning.

[Chris] Woods, of Airwars, said Pentagon data shows roughly 98 percent of the coalition airstrikes in the Manbij campaign are overseen by the U.S., and last week was the largest number of civilian casualties since the effort began in August 2014. His organization was in the midst of preparing a report on the marked rise in civilian casualties in the area when Tuesday’s reports began to come in.

[...]

The developments in Manbij, he said, were particularly worrying as coalition forces prepare to mount similar campaigns to retake larger cities from ISIS control. “This is the first big assault with a U.S.-backed proxy,” he said. “This bodes very badly for Mosul,” Iraq’s second largest city, which remains under ISIS control.

“Major alarm bells are ringing for us right now,” Woods added. “There’s something very, very bad happening out there at the moment.”

Thus coining the understatement of the century.

Can they hate us any harder?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.