US Soldiers Killed in Northern Iraq

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement that five other troopers also sustained injuries in the Sunday incident, without identifying the soldiers or providing more details regarding the circumstance of the deadly event, presstv reported.

The slain troops were part of the so-called US-led coalition, which was formed in 2014, with a purported aim of fighting the Takfiri Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group in Iraq but it was later expanded to include territories in Eastern and Northern Syria.

However, the so-called coalition has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of fulfilling its declared aim of eliminating Daesh.

According to several reports, US-led coalition air strikes have killed hundreds of civilians in Syria. The air raids have resulted not only in staggering loss of civilian life, but has also led to tens of thousands of civilians fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced.

Meanwhile, United Nations war crimes investigators has reported that the US-led coalition’s aerial back up for the Kurdish forces to take control of Raqqa from ISIL have thus far killed hundreds of civilians and displaced tens of thousands more.

The UN investigators said that intensified US-led coalition air raids on ISIL’s strongholds in Raqqa are causing a “staggering loss of civilian life”.

Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that “the battle for Raqqa is not just about defeating ISIL, but also about protecting and assisting the civilians who have suffered under ISIL rule for three and a half years.”

“Coalition members and local forces should demonstrate concretely that the lives and rights of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Raqqa are a parallel priority in the offensive,” Fakih added.

Pentagon chief James Mattis had declared that the US is “accelerating the tempo” of the fight against ISIL, and that civilian deaths should be anticipated as a “fact of life”.

Iraq Body Count’s website also disclosed that 2,316 civilians were killed in air raids of the so-called anti-ISIL coalition only in Iraq since September 1, 2014 till September 1, 2016.

Based on reports, since the first days of 2017 hundreds of civilians have been killed in the US-led coalition’s airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.