Pentagon files reveal flaws in U.S. claims about Syrian casualties in Baghdadi raid

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."The U.S. Defense Department dismissed the accounts reported by NPR of U.S. helicopter fire killing and maiming Syrian civilians during the raid. The Pentagon said those men were enemy combatants who ignored warning shots.

NPR sued the Pentagon under the Freedom of Information Act to release documentation of the airstrikes, and it obtained a redacted copy of the Defense Department's confidential 2020 report on the incident. The report was originally classified as secret with no foreign distribution. NPR's review of the documents, including aerial imagery from the operation, finds:

U.S. troops fired warning shots mere seconds before launching airstrikes on the Syrian men's van. This undermines the military's assertion that the men demonstrated hostility by failing to stop or change course.
The Pentagon provided no evidence that the victims were enemy combatants beyond the split-second assessment by U.S. troops on the dark night of the raid.
U.S. officials did not compile an intelligence dossier, as recommended in the report, to support the claim that the victims were "unlawful enemy belligerents."
The Pentagon questioned the veracity of accounts given to NPR by the airstrike survivor and families of the victims, but it did not contact the survivor or conduct a full formal investigation."...

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!

Oh say it isn't so.