The US Pentagon admitted its annual report ,released Friday ,that US military operations in six countries killed nearly 500 civilians in 2017.
“The six countries are Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia,” the Iraqi news agency Asrar Media reported, citing from the Wall Street Journal.
The report said the Pentagon has yet to assess 450 reports on civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria because of resource constraints, suggesting the final number may be higher.
“In some cases, the Department of Defense was unable to assess the validity of the reports because there was insufficient information, or because the investigators were not yet able to review the reports because of a large amount of such information,” the Wall Street Journal quoted the report as saying.
In this regard, the United Nations, which documents injuries in those countries, said that the US military killed or wounded more than 200 civilians in 2017.2017.
