SIMON: The use of drone strikes and air support really increased considerably during the Obama administration and then continued in the Trump and Biden administrations.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Drone strikes are supposed to be precise – surgical is the word often used – to target terrorists and threats and avoid killing innocent civilians. But a deep investigation by the New York Times Magazine finds that U.S. airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians – including small children – in places that include Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Investigative reporter Azmat Khan has spent the last five years reporting on U.S. military drone operations and airstrikes and civilian casualties and joins us now. Thank you so much for being with us.
AZMAT KHAN: Thank you for having me.
SIMON: The use of drone strikes and air support really increased considerably during the Obama administration and then continued in the Trump and Biden administrations. Please remind us why President Obama and others decided to emphasize drone strikes and air support.
KHAN: Absolutely. So this really came out of the discontent many Americans felt for what are now often described as the forever wars. And President Obama, you know, after the surge – which really didn’t turn things around in Afghanistan in the way that was expected as we sort of transitioned towards leaving the country – felt that there was still a need to maintain a presence there. But we didn’t want troops on the ground. And the way that we did that was often through air support – through airstrikes against not only the Taliban but ISIS, as well as air support for Iraqi and Afghan partners – Syrian partners – on the ground as they fought these groups.
SIMON: Yeah. Tell us some of some of what you found that – well, that stays with you in particular.
KHAN: You know, one particular memory that has stayed with me was visiting this hamlet in northern Syria called Tokhar, where nearly 200 people had sort of been sheltering in these houses during the worst of fighting and woke up around 3 a.m. one night in July of 2016 to these homes crumbling on top of them. And while the United States admitted that between seven and 24 civilians were killed in the document I obtained about the investigation into that airstrike, what I found on the ground was at least 120 civilians had died. You know, what I did was I – through the Freedom of Information Act, I got more than 1,500 assessments that the military had conducted into claims of civilian casualties, most of which they deemed noncredible. And one of the largest patterns I found was that they had failed often to detect the presence of civilians before an airstrike.
SIMON: That’s an intelligence failure.
KHAN: Yes, that’s an intelligence failure. I also found the misidentification of targets.
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