US airstrike in Syria mistakenly killed civilian, not al Qaeda leader, Pentagon admits

A US drone strike in northwest Syria a year ago mistakenly killed a civilian, a Pentagon review found.

The Pentagon on Thursday (May 2) acknowledged in an internal investigation, that the United States mistakenly killed a civilian in Syria in a 2023 drone strike, saying US forces had misidentified an intended al Qaeda target. 

The combatant command said in a statement, the Syrian, Lufti Hasan Masto, was struck and killed instead of an intended senior al Qaeda leader, as first reported by The Washington Post.

The US forces misidentified the target but found that the strike was conducted in compliance with the law of armed conflict," the statement further said.

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