Civilian killed by US strike in Syria was father out grazing sheep.
A drone strike carried out by the US military this month in northwest Syria killed a 56-year-old father of ten out grazing his sheep, his relatives have told CNN, hours after US Central Command said a civilian may have been killed in the operation.
The strike, carried out on May 3 in northwest Syria, targeted a senior al-Qaeda leader, Central Command said in a tweet announcing the operation that day.
The combatant command, which oversees operations in the Middle East and the surrounding region, said it would provide more information “as operational details become available.”
Officials boasted about the success of the operation, confident that the strike had achieved its mission, even though it was difficult to positively identify the target of the strike, since the US has no military footprint in northwest Syria, an area still recovering from the effects of a devastating earthquake.
There were no reports of any other casualties of the drone strike.
In the two weeks that have passed since the operation, Central Command has not released any more information about the intended target.
Killed alongside his sheep
Relatives of a man who was killed in a lone strike on the same day in the same area have since come forward with their version of events, saying he was a family man with no links to militancy.
Loutfi Hassan Mesto was herding his sheep in the village of Qurqaniya in Idlib province the morning of Wednesday, May 3 when his brother said he heard blasts and rushed to the site.
“When we went over the mountain, we saw Loutfi dead with six of his sheep,” his older brother Mohammad Mesto told CNN on Friday.
Minutes after receiving the location on their local emergency number, the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said they arrived at the location.
“The team noticed only one crater caused by the missile, which was next to the man’s body,” the Syrian Civil Defense said in a statement to CNN on Friday, also confirming that the man had been grazing his sheep.
“When the team arrived, his wife, neighbors, and other people were at the location,” the group added.
A video provided to CNN by the Syrian Civil Defense showed the moments the team arrived on site.
A woman could be heard crying as a young man hugged the man’s body lying motionless on the ground.
Three men pulled the young man away as another covered the body on the ground with a piece of cloth.
“He is a martyr, God willing,” an unknown voice said in the video.
The Syrian Civil Defense then transferred the body to a local medical facility.
Loutfi, who had 10 children, including a five-year-old, never left his village during the Syrian uprisings and did not support any political faction, his brother said.
“No Free Syrian Army (FSA), no Syrian regime, no ISIS, no al-Qaeda, no Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), no nothing, he is just a civilian who is trying to make a living,” his brother added, reeling of a list of various factions within Syria’s brutal civil war.
Mohamed Sajee, a distant relative living in Qurqaniya, also told CNN that Loutfi was never known to be in favor or against the Syrian regime.
Source: CNN
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