Civilian casualties to double under Trump

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The number of civilian deaths from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes will likely soon double under President Donald Trump, a monitor warned Monday.

Airwars, a nonprofit group that tracks civilian casualties in Iraq, Syria and Libya, said the number of civilians likely killed since Trump assumed office in January topped 2,200 last week. That is approximately 360 per month, up from 80 per month under former President Barack Obama.

In all, Airwars counted at least 2,300 likely civilian casualties under the Obama administration's two-and-a-half-year prosecution of the anti-Daesh campaign.

While the coalition's admitted the casualty count is far short of the numbers suggested by Airwars, coalition data appears to support a spike under Trump. About 40 percent of the 603 civilians it says were killed in the effort to defeat Daesh died under the Trump administration.

After pledging to "blow the [expletive] out of ISIS" on the campaign trail, Trump tasked his Defense Department with accelerating efforts to defeat the terror group. Trump told the Pentagon in a memorandum to remove "United States policy restrictions that exceed the requirements of international law regarding the use of force against ISIS".

ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is another name for Daesh.

Airwars Director Chris Woods said in a statement the sharp increase in civilian casualties under Trump "is deeply concerning".

"We have been warning for some time that casualties were rising far faster than anticipated - even given the present assaults on Raqqa and Mosul," Woods said. "This should be an urgent wakeup call to the US and its military allies, that far better civilian protections need to be in place right now."