U.S. claims mistaken airstrikes in Syria legal

What was believed to be an attack on IS fighters killed Syrian soldiers

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military on Tuesday blamed human error for what it called a mistaken coalition air assault Sept. 17 that reportedly killed dozens of Syrian soldiers. Targeters believed they were directing attacks on Islamic State fighters, and because this was an honest mistake the strikes did not violate the international law of armed conflict, U.S. military investigators concluded.

Multiple opportunities to avoid the mistake were missed in a sequence of events that began with the erroneous identification of a vehicle as belonging to IS and ended when a Russian military officer called a U.S.Russia telephone hotline to alert the Americans that the coalition strikes near Deir el-Zour were hitting Syrian government forces.

The call prompted the Americans to halt the attacks, but the chief U.S. investigator told reporters at the Pentagon that if word from the Russians had not been delayed 27 minutes, nearly half of the 30-plus strikes might not have been conducted. The Russian caller waited that long for a familiar U.S. counterpart to come on the line before passing his message, investigators said.

“This is unfortunate,” the investigators wrote in an executive summary, referring to the 27-minute delay, “but it could have been even more so had the Russians not called.” They also said that in notifying Russian officers in advance of the attack, the U.S.-led air operations center inadvertently provided erroneous information about the target location.

“This may have affected the Russian response to the notification and caused considerable confusion in the (targeting) process,” the investigation report said.

A request for comment by the Russian Embassy in Washington was not immediately answered.

It was the first known American attack on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces. Although the Obama administration has called Assad’s rule illegitimate, it has focused its military campaign in Syria on forces of the Islamic State group.

The Syrian government said immediately after the attacks that the U.S.-led coalition was guilty of a “serious and blatant attack on Syria and its military,” and that it showed the U.S. supports the Islamic State because the assault enabled IS fighters to make important advances on the battlefield. The Russian government, which supports Assad, made a similar statement.

The U.S. denies collusion with Islamic State.