A US -led airstrike mistakenly killed 18 members of a Kurdish and Arab militia backed by Washington south of the Syrian city of Tabqa, the Pentagon said on Thursday. Of those, the coalition has confirmed four, including a strike last September that killed at least 15 friendly Syrian forces The confirmed strikes also include a December 2015 strike in Fallujah that killed at least nine Iraqi soldiers and a strike near Mosul last October that killed 18 friendly Sunni Muslim tribal militia members.
A misdirected airstrike by the US -led coalition this week killed 18 allied fighters battling the Islamic State group in northern Syria, the USA military said Thursday.
"The coalition's deepest condolences go out to the members of the SDF and their families", Central Command said in the statement, calling the episode "tragic".
"The Coalition is assessing the cause of the incident and will implement appropriate safeguards to prevent similar incidents in the future", the Pentagon statement said.
It was not clear if the strike came from a USA military plane or that of another coalition member.
The U.S. has been supporting the SDF with special ops support on the ground behind the front lines, equipment such as artillery systems, and airstrikes as requested from commanders on the ground.
The SDF is now engaged in an assault on the ISIS stronghold of Tabqa, which lies just 25 miles outside of Raqqa, the extremist group's de facto capital in Syria.
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That incident was reportedly the first friendly fire incident acknowledged by the Pentagon in Syria during its anti-IS operation.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking Friday alongside his Iranian and Syrian counterparts in Moscow, said the strikes were a failed effort to undermine the peace process in Syria and to change the regime. "It will never happen", he said.
The worldwide chemical weapons watchdog is testing samples from the suspected nerve gas attack and could produce a report on the matter within three weeks, the British delegation to the commission said Thursday.
He called instead for an investigation involving representatives of all the UN Security Council members, which include the U.S. and Russian Federation.
On Wednesday (12 April), Russia, an ally of Assad, vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
The head of Iraqi civil forces working at the Mosul site told CNN that 141 bodies have been recovered.
The strike marks the third time in a month the US or its partners have struck civilians or allies with deadly consequences. In December 2015, nine Iraqi soldiers in Fallujah were accidentally killed by US -led aircraft, and in January 2016 nine Shiite militiamen fighting near Tikrit were bombed by an Iraqi drone.
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