SECDEF Asks for Briefing Re: Baghuz

Pentagon Chief Orders Briefing on 2019 Syria Airstrike That Killed Dozens

"Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has ordered the military’s top commander in the Middle East to brief him on details of a U.S. airstrike in Syria in 2019 that killed dozens of women and children, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The Pentagon’s top spokesman, John F. Kirby, said Mr. Austin, who became secretary this year after the Biden administration took office, requested the briefing after reading an investigative report published over the weekend by The New York Times detailing the strike and allegations that top officers and civilian officials sought to conceal the casualties.

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Mr. Kirby would not comment on details of the strike, a bombing at Baghuz, Syria, on March 18, 2019, that was part of the final battle against Islamic State fighters in the last shard of a once-sprawling religious state across Iraq and Syria....“I’m not going to relitigate a strike that happened back in March of 2019,” Mr. Kirby said."