Canadian airstrike in Iraq may have killed civilians

Military didn’t investigate because it had no evidence of bystander casualties

OTTAWA— A Kurdish militia soldier reported that an airstrike by Canadian fighter jets in Iraq in January may have killed up to 27 civilians, U.S. documents say.

The peshmerga soldier told coalition special forces that a Jan. 21strike by CF-18 fighters near Mosul may have killed six to 27 bystanders.

The Canadian military says it didn’t investigate the claims because it found no supporting evidence and continues to insist it has no proof that any civilians died in the attack.

The reports of possible civilian casualties are detailed in an internal document titled “allegation tracker” prepared by U.S. Central Command to log and review reports of civilian casualties in the ongoing, multinational air campaign against Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria.

The documents were obtained under U.S. Freedom of Information legislation by journalist Joseph Trevithick for the blog site War Is Boring.

The details of the documents were first reported by CBC News.

Canadian CF-18 fighters have been conducting airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq since last November, a campaign that was expanded to Syria in the spring.

The Jan. 21 airstrike — one of four that day by Canadians — happened near Kisik Junction when a CF-18 struck an Islamic State sniper or heavy machine-gun outpost on the roof of a building in a compound held by the militants, the documents state.

At the time, Kurdish forces were launching a major offensive to capture this key junction.

British journalist Chris Woods, who leads the Airwars project, said it’s significant that a Kurdish soldier made the report of the casualties.

“This report didn’t come from a bystander or a Tweet or social media. It came from an English-speaking fighter working with the coalition . . . who makes a fairly clear allegation,” Woods told the Star in an interview.

Yet the Canadian military told the U.S. military they saw no obligation to examine what happened.

The Canadian military declined to make anyone available to speak to the Star on the issue Thursday.

However, in a statement, the military said that coalition headquarters reviewed photos and video and “uncovered no evidence of civilian casualties” resulting from the bombing.

“It was reconfirmed that the target struck by Canada was a valid military objective,” the statement said.