US probes whether attack killed civilian, not al-Qaeda leader
Al JazeeraNov 26, 2022
Pentagon: US Drone in Syria May Have Killed Civilian, Not Terrorist
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Image copyright: Wikimedia Commons
The Facts
US Central Command on Friday said that the Pentagon is investigating a drone strike targeting a senior al-Qaeda leader in northwest Syria on May 3 that "may have unintentionally resulted" in a civilian casualty instead.
This comes a day after The Washington Post reported that officials were "no longer confident" that an influential figure had been killed in the strike, walking back its original claims.
The Spin
Republican narrative
Given that no one has been held accountable for the drone striking an entire family in the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, it's no coincidence that the Biden administration has carried out another disastrous counterterrorism operation that killed an innocent person. The lack of accountability for bad decisions has been driving the US government to commit the same mistakes repeatedly.
Democratic narrative
It's not yet definitely known whether the strike unintentionally killed a civilian, but what is known is that Biden has a laudable record related to the use of drones in counterterrorism operations, as he has reversed a loosening of Obama-era rules under Donald Trump, which allowed the chain of command to approve lethal strikes outside conventional war zones. However, in Syria and Iraq, commanders in the field still retain autonomy to order strikes without the White House's approval.
