Military tied to 499 civilian deaths

WASHINGTON — U.S. military actions killed 499 civilians in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen last year, the Pentagon said Friday in a report that was a month overdue.

The report, which covers counterterrorism airstrikes and ground operations around the world, added that ‘‘more than 450 reports of civilian casualties from 2017 remained to be assessed,’’ which means the number of acknowledged deaths could increase. It also said that 169 civilians were injured in American strikes.

The report does not list any civilian casualties in Somalia, where nongovernmental organizations and local officials have pinned scores of civilian deaths on U.S. or U.S.-backed military actions.

Such discrepancies are not exclusive to the Trump administration. During both Barack Obama’s and George W. Bush’s presidencies, accounts of strikes from U.S. and nongovernmental organization sources were so at odds that they often seemed to be describing different events.

A 2016 executive order signed by Obama, and later enshrined by Congress, mandated that the Defense Department give an annual accounting of the number of civilians killed in U.S. counterterrorism strikes around the world.

After its release, the report was condemned by organizations that track civilian casualties, saying it undercounted casualties.