(Washington) A U.S. strike in Syria last year killed a civilian wrongly identified as an al-Qaeda leader, the U.S. Middle East Military Command (Centcom) revealed Thursday.
After this strike carried out on May 3, 2023, information quickly showed that the man killed was not the high-ranking jihadist targeted. The United States announced the opening of an investigation two weeks later.
“The investigation revealed that American forces had incorrectly identified the target linked to Al-Qaeda which was targeted and that a civilian had been hit and killed,” Centcom announced in a press release, saying it “regretted” the death of the civil.
However, “the investigation concluded that the strike had been carried out in compliance with the law of armed conflict as well as the rules of the Ministry of Defense and Centcom”, added the latter, noting however “several points which could be improved “.
A few hours after the death of Lotfi Hassan Masto, his brother affirmed that the victim had no link with Al-Qaeda. Father of 12 children, he was around 60 years old and “was taking care of his sheep in the mountains when the drone arrived and targeted him,” according to his brother Mohammed Masto.
“He was happy in his life and everyone loved and appreciated him,” Mohammed Masto reported at the time. “He lived his life on the outskirts of the village.”
The United States has deployed around 900 troops in Syria as part of an international coalition against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) and has regularly carried out strikes in the war-torn country since 2011.
ISIS took control of swaths of Syria and Iraq in 2014, proclaiming its “caliphate” and launching a reign of terror before being defeated in 2019 by the coalition.