A top-secret US military unit called the “Talon Anvil” is behind the massive civilian death toll during the war on ISIS.

A small, secret US strike cell has fired tens of thousands of bombs and missiles at Islamic State targets in Syria, regularly disregarding protection measures, and shielding the countless civilians who have been wounded and killed.

The cell, known as Talon Anvil, operated around the clock in three shifts from unknown offices in Syria and Iraq between 2014 and 2019 – but according to a resounding report in the New York Times, it was never on military records.

Several current and former military and intelligence officials told The New York Times that the group upset the cooperating military agencies, as it “killed people who had no part in the conflict: farmers trying to harvest, children in the streets, families fleeing the fighting, villagers sheltering in buildings.”

“They were ruthlessly efficient and good at their jobs,” said a former Air Force intelligence officer who worked on hundreds of covert Talon Anville missions from 2016 to 2018.
But they also made a lot of bad strikes.

Intelligence agents counted the number of casualties, counting 23 dead or fatally wounded and 30 “lightly wounded.” The operator pauses long enough to acknowledge the message before pressing its next target.

The Times source said he immediately reported the victims, but came to nothing.

The Airwars, a group of independent journalists who estimate the number of dead in airstrikes in Middle Eastern countries, estimated that seven to 14 residents of Karama died that day, including 6 children.

The number of civilian casualties in Syria grew significantly each year when Talon Anvil was operating, according to former State Department and Pentagon advisor Larry Lewis who wrote the 2018 Department of Defense report on civilian harm.

Lewis, who was privy to classified State Department records on civilian casualties, told the Times that losses in Syria during the period in which the cell was operating were 10 times higher than losses recorded in similar operations in Afghanistan.

“It was much higher than I would have expected from an American unit,” Lewis said. “I was shocked by the fact that it has increased so dramatically and steadily over the years.”

Lewis said commanders neglected to press the importance of preventing civilian casualties,

Despite its “huge” role – 112,000 bombs and missiles on the Islamic State, the cell was disproportionately small, sometimes staffed with only 20 elements.

The majority of strikes carried out by Talon Anvil were approved not by senior commanders but by relatively low-ranking US Army Delta Force commandos in their strike rooms. This decision was made to try to accelerate the efforts of the US-led coalition to destroy ISIS.

General Stephen J. Townsend, who was the commander of the US offensive against ISIS between 2016 and 2017 and who implemented the policy that delegated strike authority to lower-ranking individuals at the time, has dismissed allegations that the cell acted recklessly or carelessly, attributing the losses it caused. to “the misfortunes of war”.

A former member of Talon Anvil said that the majority of the group’s strikes killed only enemy combatants. However, he told the newspaper, the operators were under tremendous pressure and biased the beating.

He said they often determined that something was an enemy target with little supporting evidence.
He said agents were rotated about every four months, and had little experience running offensive units despite being trained as elite special forces.