A group of Democratic lawmakers wants answers from the Department of Defense regarding an investigation into a drone strike in Syria in May that may have resulted in the death of a civilian.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, initially said the May 3 strike killed a "senior al-Qaeda leader" though there were indications in the immediate aftermath that a civilian had been killed. Officials announced an investigation into the matter about two weeks after the strike, which is still ongoing.
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Lutfi Hassan Misto was killed by a missile strike on the outskirts of Qurqaniya, north of Idlib, on May 3, the Syrian Civil Defense, a humanitarian response group often referred to as the “White Helmets," said on social media. The group said they arrived on the scene a mere 10 minutes after a local resident contacted them about the strike. His family members also disputed U.S. claims of terrorist connections, according to the Washington Post.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris van Hollen (D-MD) and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, dated Wednesday, asking for information regarding not just the investigation but into how, why, and when the investigation was launched.
CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla ordered his subordinates to announce the strike publicly on the day the strike occurred, according to CNN, which the lawmakers said left them “particularly troubled” about that decision “without confirming the victim’s identity.
“By announcing the strike before confirming who DoD actually killed and delaying the process of opening an investigation into reports of civilian deaths, CENTCOM undermined DoD’s and its own credibility and commitment to civilian harm prevention and response,” the lawmakers wrote. “While we recognize that this specific incident is part of an ongoing investigation, this does not negate the need for you to provide answers to Congress on the processes to implement the CHMR-AP," which is a reference to the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan.
While the department has reiterated its efforts to avoid civilian casualties, CENTCOM in particular has faced public scrutiny in recent years for bad strikes.
CENTCOM accidentally targeted a civilian on August 29, 2021, in Kabul, Afghanistan. U.S. operators believed he was an ISIS-K operative who posed an imminent risk to U.S. troops evacuating at-risk Afghans just days before the military was set to leave the country. Days earlier, an ISIS-K terrorist detonated a suicide bomb outside the Kabul airport gates, killing roughly 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, and injuring dozens of others.
A subsequent investigation resulted in no disciplinary actions for those involved in the strike, though the investigator, Air Force Inspector General Lt. Gen. Sami Said, emphasized the issue confirmation bias played, though recent changes have been implemented to change that, which the lawmakers touched on as well.
"Despite these reforms, the publicly reported timeline of events related to the May 2023 strike indicates that DoD may still be suffering from deadly confirmation bias and resisting the consideration of outside information, and raises questions about how thoroughly CENTCOM has implemented the military’s civilian harm mitigation policy," they wrote.
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In May of last year, the Pentagon completed an investigation into a March 2019 drone strike in Baghuz, Syria that killed dozens of people, including women and children, and was concealed from public knowledge until it was reported on publicly more than two years later.
The lawmakers referenced CENTCOM’s public statements on this strike and questioned whether it was part of a broader “systemic undercounting of civilian casualties.”