US: Airstrike in Syria may have killed civilians

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The U.S. military says an airstrike in Syria may have killed an unspecified number of civilians.

Central Command, which oversees the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, said Wednesday that its internal assessment of the airstrike near the city of Raqqa on Tuesday suggests the possibility of civilian casualties. It said a “non-military vehicle” drove into the target area after the weapon was fired from the aircraft, possibly killing the occupants of the vehicle.

No other details were reported.

On Wednesday, Turkey launched its first major ground assault into Syria since the country’s civil war began, sending in tanks and special forces backed by U.S. airstrikes to help Syrian rebels retake a border town from Islamic State militants.

The surprise incursion to capture the town of Jarablus was a dramatic escalation of Turkey’s role in Syria’s war. Its objective went beyond fighting extremists. Turkey is aiming to contain expansion by Syria’s Kurds, who also are backed by the U.S. and have used the fight against IS and the chaos of the civil war to seize nearly the entire stretch of the border with Turkey in northern Syria.

That raises the potential for explosive frictions between two American allies.