Coalition strikes kill 45 Iraqi civilians last month, Pentagon says

The Pentagon says investigations conducted during the month of March reveal that coalition airstrikes killed 45 civilians, mostly in and around the city of Mosul.

In a statement, the Pentagon says in each incident “all feasible precautions were taken,” but the strikes still resulted in “unintentional” loss of civilian life.

The Pentagon acknowledges at least 362 civilians have been killed by coalition strikes in Iraq and Syria since the start of the air campaign against the Islamic State group in 2014. Activists and monitoring groups put the number much higher, saying coalition strikes have killed more than 3,000 civilians in Iraq and Syria since then, according to Airwars.

The US launched a campaign of airstrikes against IS in August of 2014 after it overran Mosul and swaths of Iraq’s north and west.

— AP