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Ricky Carioti

Rights organizations are urging Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to authorize condolence payments to families of civilians killed or injured by U.S. military operations overseas, an 11th-hour test of the Biden administration’s promise to improve America’s handling of unintended battlefield casualties.

Advocates, who appealed for action in a recent letter to Austin, say that survivors have waited for years after filing payment claims over errant counterterrorism operations in nations including Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

“They lost homes, limbs and loved ones,” said Joanna Naples-Mitchell, director of the redress program at the Zomia Center, which represents a group of  affected families. In some cases, she added, flawed airstrikes have deprived victims of the family’s sole breadwinner; in others, survivors are left with lasting disabilities or chronic medical needs.

Maha Khalil Ali lost her husband, Ziad Khalaf Awad, in a 2016 American strike in Mosul, Iraq, then a locus for the Islamic State, the brutal extremist group targeted in an extended air campaign beginning in 2014.

“The compensation is not all about the money,” Ali said. “It’s about the rights for those who lost a loved one.”

Austin, a veteran Army general, oversaw counterinsurgent operations across the Middle East. The appeal by groups including the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), Airwars, and Human Rights Watch, offers visibility into one dimension of an effort launched by him to improve the U.S. military’s handling of civilians on the battlefield. Now, he has less than 65 days to secure those goals before handing off to the Trump administration.

President-elect Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/11/12/pete-hegseth-trump-defense-secretary/" target=_blank>choice to replace Austin</a>, Pete Hegseth, has advocated for “more lethality, less lawyers” in military operations.

Felipe Dana

In their Oct. 31 letter to Austin, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, the groups asked for immediate action, at a minimum, on a relatively small number of outstanding cases in which the Defense Department has confirmed that civilians were injured or killed; there is an outstanding request for payment from the victim or their family; and the family is reachable through civil society representatives.

“The department has what it needs to make these payments in the coming months, from the policy architecture, to the funding, to the requests and documentation from civilians and their representatives,” the groups wrote. “What we are asking for now is your leadership in ensuring these families are not forgotten.”

A U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the department, said the Pentagon was reviewing the letter but declined to comment on specific cases. The official said the department considers payments based on individual circumstances, noting that they are not intended to represent compensation for losses but are a goodwill gesture.

Annie Shiel, U.S. advocacy director for CIVIC, said the groups were asking for action on the “dozens” of existing requests. “All Secretary Austin has to do now is say yes,” she said.

Making the payments, advocates say, would mark a step forward in owning and addressing America’s role in causing unintentional but substantial injury and death where it has conducted combat activities in recent decades.

Groups tracking the outcome of those operations give dramatically higher estimates of human losses than the military itself. In the years-long air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria alone, for example, Airwars, which has worked to track and verify civilian casualties in strikes by the U.S. military, <a href="https://airwars.org/conflict/coalition-in-iraq-and-syria/" target=_blank>estimates at least 8,000 civilian deaths</a>. The U.S. military, in a corroboration process that has evolved over the past decade, has acknowledged around 1,300.

Courtesy of Ilyas Ali Abd Ali

Since taking office in 2021, Austin has prioritized improving that record. In 2022, after <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/09/17/drone-strike-kabul-afghanistan/" target=_blank>a drone strike</a> that accidentally killed 10 civilians, including seven children, during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Pentagon introduced <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/25/pentagon-civilian-casualties/" target=_blank>a new blueprint</a> for how the military addresses civilian harm. It also stood up a “center of excellence” to share best practices across the military and has sought to improve follow-up when reports of deaths occur.

Congress has supported those goals, providing the Pentagon with up to $3 million a year for condolence payments, which are made at the discretion of commanders.

But according to Pentagon records, only one condolence payment was made between 2020 and 2022. While the department has yet to release information on those made this year or in 2023, groups working with victims think only a handful took place. That compares with approximately <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-military-made-2-million-in-civilian-casualties-payments-over-5-years-in-afghanistan/2020/08/17/cd550af0-d025-11ea-af07-1d058ca137ae_story.html" target=_blank>$2 million paid for actions in Afghanistan alone</a> between 2015 and 2019, with amounts ranging from $131 to $40,000.

Airwars director Emily Tripp said the Pentagon has an opportunity to acknowledge “that civilians aren’t just collateral, but are individuals with needs and grievances and complicated lives that demand complicated responses.”

Courtesy of Maha Khalil Ali

Daphne Eviatar, director of the security with human rights program with Amnesty International, questioned why the Pentagon had “inexplicably” failed to spend its congressionally allocated condolence funds. Ensuring families are paid is a way for Austin to help families “in a concrete, constructive way before he leaves office,” she said.

Ziad Khalaf Awad’s son Tariq, who was 8 at the time of his death, found his father “covered with lots of rocks and debris” after the strike. American officials initially said the action killed an Islamic State recruiter and four civilians. But several months later, the recruiter was found alive, according <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/19/magazine/victims-airstrikes-middle-east-civilians.html" target=_blank>to a New York Times</a> report on the strike.

“[Awad] died because of a military mistake,” Awad’s widow said. “We want to pursue this case so it could be a message that they should not underestimate the lives of the innocent, civilian people.”

A 2020 strike in Somalia injured three women ranging in age from 7 to 70 and killed an 18-year-old woman. They were relatives of Mohamed Osman Abdi, a Somali journalist. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) initially said one militant was killed in the strike, with no civilian casualties. Abdi said his family was not connected to militants.

Courtesy of Mohamed Osman Abdi

According to Priyanka Motaparthy, director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern Law School, AFRICOM later acknowledged responsibility for the incident but never contacted the family and has not offered amends.

Abdi has done his best to care for his surviving relatives but said he could not afford all their needs. “The worst thing is that we do not get acknowledgment from the U.S.,” he said.

Naples-Mitchell, who has filed payment requests for more than 20 U.S.-confirmed incidents in Iraq and Syria, said many affected families had given up after years of waiting.

She noted that relatively small payments could go a long way, helping victims afford a prosthetic limb, a wheelchair, or nursing care.

Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said condolence payments are an acknowledgment of the victims, especially important in conflicts where U.S. troops are far from their targets and drone and other air operations provide a layer of anonymity to their outcomes.

“If your father was killed by a military, and you knew that they didn’t even know who [he was] — that’s devastating,” she said.

In June 2016, llyas Ali Abd Ali was working at his fruit stand in Mosul when a strike deprived him of a leg, hearing in one ear, and his ability to support his family. His injuries could be addressed outside Iraq, but he cannot afford that luxury.

“We are desperate,” he said. “My two daughters are praying every single day that there would be a solution, that there will be finally a light at the end of this dark tunnel.”

Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Honorable Mention, Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, 2019

Fulbright-Nehru Scholar, 2010

U.S. State Department Critical Language Scholar for Punjabi, 2009

Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth: The President's Falsehoods, Misleading Claims and Flat-Out Lies

Columbia University, Barnard College, BA, Architecture

Meg Kelly is a video reporter for The Washington Post's Visual Forensics team. 

Meg Kelly

New York Press Club award for political reporting, 2012

Georgetown University, BA in English

Harvard University, master's in public policy

Missy Ryan writes about national security and defense for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2014 and has written about the Pentagon and the State Department. She has reported from Iraq, Ukraine, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

Missy Ryan

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Pentagon urged to make payments for slain, injured civilians

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