Report reveals US bombed Syrian dam knowing tens of thousands of lives were at risk

ByNews Desk- The Cradle

The US hid the details of the strike from its NATO partners

Drone footage taken on 27 March 2017 shows smoke rising above the Tabqa dam in Raqqa, Syria a day after a US air strike on the dam. (Photo Credit: Aamaq News Agency via AP).

The New York Times on 20 January revealed that a US military drone operations team in 2017 struck a Syrian dam, despite being fully aware that the strike could cause flooding that could kill tens of thousands of people and wipe out villages located downstream of the dam.

According to the New York Times, on 26 March 2017, the so-called Task Force 9 dropped some of the largest bombs in its arsenal on the Tabqa dam on the Euphrates river, some 40 kilometers from the city of Raqqa in the governorate of Raqqa.

At the time, the dam was under the control of the ISIS armed group.

The report said major flooding was avoided due to the fact that one of the bombs that was dropped on the fifth floor of the dam complex failed to explode.

The report added that had the bomb exploded, it would have brought down the entire wall of the dam, and flooded thousands of hectares of land in the region.

Quick action by local engineers who rushed to the scene to repair the damage caused by the airstrike also helped to avert a possible catastrophe.

The airstrike was in contravention of recommendations by the US military’s specialized engineers in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Defense Resources and Infrastructure office.

The engineers had categorically warned against bombing the dam due to the risk of massive flooding.

The US military initially denied reports that it was behind the attack on the dam, with then-head of operations in Syria, Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, insisting that the facility was not “a coalition target.”

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) later admitted that the airstrike was carried out by the US military. However, it maintained that the attack did not target the dam wall, but only the operating towers at the dam.

Quoting a former director of the dam, the Times said that if the dam wall had collapsed, the number of casualties would have been higher than those who have died since the war broke out in 2011.

The report comes less than two months after the same publication revealed how the US military concealed drone attacks that killed dozens of civilians in Syria.

Those drone strikes were carried out by the same team behind the bombing of the Tabqa dam.