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A Dam in Syria Was on a ‘No- Strike’ List. The U.S. Bombed It Anyway.

A military report warned that striking the giant structure could cause tens of thousands of deaths.

Click to view the original at nytimes.com

Hasnain says:

Does this meet the definition of a war crime?

Either way, the engineers that ran in to prevent a catastrophe are heroes.

“The Islamic State, the Syrian government and Russia blamed the United States, but the dam was on the U.S. military’s “no-strike list” of protected civilian sites and the commander of the U.S. offensive at the time, then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, said allegations of U.S. involvement were based on “crazy reporting.”

“The Tabqa Dam is not a coalition target,” he declared emphatically two days after the blasts.

In fact, members of a top secret U.S. Special Operations unit called Task Force 9 had struck the dam using some of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal, including at least one BLU-109 bunker-buster bomb designed to destroy thick concrete structures, according to two former senior officials. And they had done it despite a military report warning not to bomb the dam, because the damage could cause a flood that might kill tens of thousands of civilians.”

Posted on 2022-01-20T20:28:41+0000