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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Report: Covert US army unit tasked with fighting IS repeatedly killed civilians
2021-12-13
[IsraelTimes] Current and former American military and intelligence officials tell The New York Times

... which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
 that a covert US army cell operating repeatedly killed civilians as collateral damage in its operations against the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 terror group in Syria.
Given how excited the New York Times clearly is, we have to wonder how far from the truth their journalism might be.
The unit called Talon Anvil was active between 2014 and 2019 striking convoys, boom-mobiles, command centers and squads of enemy fighters, NYT says.

But NYT sources says the cell "circumvented rules imposed to protect noncombatants," sometimes killing farmers in the middle of their harvest, children on the street, fleeing families, and villagers sheltering in buildings.
We also must wonder how many of the killed suddenly became civilians when they dropped the weapons in their hands.
"They were ruthlessly efficient and good at their jobs," says one former Air Force intelligence officer who was with the unit from 2016 to 2018. "But they also made a lot of bad strikes."
Update from the Daily Mail with lots of incidents at 9:15 a.m. ET, courtesy of Skidmark. Their bullet points:
  • A small American strike cell alarmed CIA and Airforce officials by killing countless civilians as they launches airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria

  • Between 2014 and 2017, operation Talon Anvil routinely flouted safeguard procedures, sources told the New York Times, to function at the 'speed of war'

  • In the process, they obscured the number of civilians they killed in their operations, and averted drone cameras at the moment that missiles would hit

  • The cell played an 'outsize' role in the 112,000 bombs and missiles aimed at the Islamic State while the so-called caliphate was in operation

  • Former Department of Defense and Pentagon adviser Larry Lewis said that casualties were ten times higher in Syria than in similar missions in Afghanistan

  • 'It was higher than I would have expected from a U.S. unit,' he said. 'The fact that it increased dramatically and steadily over a period of years shocked me'

  • Overseeing strike after strike, one source said, seemed to 'erode operators' perspective and fray their humanity'
The NYT is also concerned that the operators wore civvies and beards instead appearing neat and trim in their uniforms.
Related:
New York Times: 2021-12-09 Mike Pence aide sells out Trump world to January 6th Committee
New York Times: 2021-12-08 Controversial Biden Customs and Border Protections nominee confirmed
New York Times: 2021-12-08 Charlottesville Robert E. Lee statue to be melted down to create 'art that will reflect racial justice'
Posted by:trailing wife

#6  It's not a story until someone makes it one. Sounds like someone(s) is not licking the woke boot.
Posted by: jefe101   2021-12-13 22:08  

#5  In guerrilla warfare it is extremely difficult to tell the combatants from the civilians when no one wears a uniform and everyone is lugging around an AK
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom    2021-12-13 13:11  

#4  Also, it occurs to me that this unit was stood up in 2014, making it a President Obama project and, since he closely managed all WoT killing, one whose actions he would have been aware of — though clearly the article means to tar President Trump and the Army with the accusation of wanton murder.

Me, I look at ISIS and see a society of eager, complicit volunteers and the conquered in their particular Hell. I, too, am reminded of the carpet bombing of WWII.
Posted by: trailing wife   2021-12-13 09:40  

#3  Note the update from the Daily Mail, and scan the entire article to get a better feel for those who fed the information to the New York Times.
Posted by: Omert Scourge of the Trolls7669   2021-12-13 09:31  

#2  It's called war... In all 1,570 French cities and towns were bombed by the Allies between June 1940 and May 1945. The total number of civilians killed was 68,778, mostly elderly (including the 2,700 civilians killed in Royan)
Posted by: Procopius2k   2021-12-13 07:26  

#1  

Not to belittle this accident.
But of course accidents happen in war.
But The Talon Anvil operators were focused on a building, and had viable INTEL that it was an enemy training center.

So looking broadly at Talon Anvil operational mission. It acted kinda like a FO for Terrorist strike eliminations.

OPEN QUESTION:
NYT's with its Anti-Military, vilify any success regarding the war on terrorism, and it well known strong Anti-USA mission story agenda. NYT's ...How also about covering their 100's, if not 1000's of successful terrorist eliminations? Which saved 10's of 1000's of lives. Or the lives that it cost Talon Anvil operative team members? Or is the goal to be one sided, discredit our military, and stomp on it as LIBERAL RAG you are now.


Posted by: NN2N1   2021-12-13 05:54  

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