airstrikes

An Israeli air force jet fighter plane takes off from Tel Nof Air Force base in central Israel, Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

MINNEAPOLIS — Not long before Donald Trump took his presidential oath, the Obama administration was taking care of unfinished business in a part of the world that many Americans likely never think much about. In Somalia, a nation forced into a state of emergency thanks in part to an ongoing famine that is being fueled by a covert U.S. war on terrorism.

After American forces shot down a Syrian jet over US-occupied territory, Russian forces decided to end its communication agreement with the US-led Coalition and said they will target US planes if they cross the western border of the Euphrates River. [...]

A mosque destroyed by U.S.-coalition airstrikes in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa. (Aamaq News Agency via AP)

A mosque destroyed by bombardment by the U.S.-led coalition in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa. (Aamaq News Agency via AP)
According to a U.N. Commission of Inquiry tasked with investigating violations of international war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria, the intensification of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition has led to a “staggering loss of civilian life,” the Guardian reports.

People inspect damage from US coalition airstrikes and artillery shelling in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, Syria, May 29, 2017. (Aamaq via AP)
With its latest official declaration estimating the number of innocent people killed by airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. military has admitted killing 484 civilians since beginning a bombing campaign and ground operations to unseat the Islamic State (ISIS) from strongholds in the two countries.

A volunteer carries the body of civilians killed in a US air strike in Mosul, Iraq on March 24, 2017. (AP/Felipe Dana)

(ANTIWAR.COM) Reports of civilian deaths in US airstrikes in Western Mosul appear to be once again soaring out of control, as indications of just over a dozen civilians slain has turned into  in a flurry of airstrikes targeting ISIS-held neighborhoods in the Old City.

Residents walk through damaged streets at the mountain resort town of Zabadani in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Thursday, May 18, 2017. (AP/Hassan Ammar)
Exemplified by the hundred and some odd people they’ve killed in the last 48 hours, the US is struggling mightily with the narrative that they are taking extraordinary care to limit the number of civilian casualties in the air war in Syria, and are rapidly losing any pretense of a moral high ground.

Residents carry the body of several civilians killed in a US air strike in Mosul, Iraq on March 24, 2017. (AP/Felipe Dana)
Pentagon officials announced Thursday the completion of an investigation confirming that a U.S. airstrike in Mosul against the Islamic State group killed at least 105 civilians, AFP reported. They maintain, however, that the high civilian toll resulted from a secondary explosion of Islamic State group explosives stored in the building.