The NPR Politics Podcast - Man Wounded in US Raid On ISIS Head Says His Future Was Destroyed

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

The U.S. Defense Department said troops spared civilians during a celebrated 2019 raid against the leader of ISIS, but NPR has uncovered new details that challenge the U.S. claims. Read the full investigation.This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, international correspondent Daniel Estrin, and Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Additional editorial assistance from from Andrew Sussman. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Guillermo calling from a ferry somewhere between Finland and Estonia. Traveling with me are my husband and our little dog, Babe, who is about to be visiting his 14th country. This podcast was recorded at 1.13 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, July 25th of 2023. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. OK, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Tom Bowman. I cover the Pentagon. And today on the show, we are joined by NPR international correspondent Daniel Estrin. It is great to have you with us, Daniel. Thanks for having me. So you have done some really compelling reporting that pokes holes in the U.S. government's claims about a big, celebrated military operation. In 2019, U.S. Special Forces raided the Syrian hideout of

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the man often described as the founder of ISIS. The president at the time, Donald Trump, called the operation impeccable, and military officials said troops protected noncombatants. But Daniel, you obtained confidential documents that reveal flaws in the Pentagon's claim that deadly airstrikes did not hit civilians. And I should say this comes as the Biden administration also has begun to articulate a new plan to reduce civilian casualties. So I want us to rewind. Take us back to 2019, Daniel, the night of this raid in Syria. What is the government's version of events? Well, the government says that U.S. helicopters arrived in Syria to capture or kill Baghdadi. Combatants started arriving, saw the helicopters arriving and started flowing to that area.

And combatants opened fire on U.S. aircraft. U.S. helicopters killed them with airstrikes. And then this is where our reporting enters. A van shows up around that same area and starts driving down this dark village road in the direction of troops who were raiding Baghdadi's compound further down the road. And the military's central claim is that troops fired warning shots along the road to try to get the van to stop. But the van didn't change course. It kept driving. And so the Pentagon said this van demonstrated hostile intent toward troops. And so the military targeted the van with airstrikes. They called them

necessary airstrikes. And the military determined that the men in the van were unlawful enemy belligerents, enemy combatants. So what did you find out in these new documents you obtained? Yeah, we actually sued the Pentagon to get a copy of its confidential review of this incident. This review was originally classified as secret, not to be distributed to foreign governments or foreign civilians. But we got a redacted copy. It was declassified and given to us in the context of this lawsuit through the Freedom of Information Act. And these Pentagon documents we received include aerial surveillance images from the operation. We also got previously classified emails from Pentagon officials. And we looked at those documents and we found flaws in the Pentagon's claims.

The central claim is that the van ignored warning shots. But when we compared the aerial images in the report with the other documentation in the report, we determined that those warning shots provided hardly any warning at all, that the troops fired just about two or three seconds before launching airstrikes on the van and then airstrikes on the men as they fleed the van. We concluded that the Pentagon provided no evidence that the victims were enemy combatants beyond that split-second assessment

by U.S. troops in the dark night of that raid. We found the Pentagon walked back an earlier claim they made to NPR that the van had fired on troops. In fact, the van did not open fire. And we found something curious. We found that U.S. officials did not compile an intelligence dossier as the confidential report recommended, a dossier that was supposed to support the claim that the victims were enemy combatants. So Daniel, if the men were not

enemy combatants, according to your reporting, who are they? Who were they? Well, we spoke to the only survivor of the airstrikes on the van. His name is Barakat Ahmad Barakat. He's 39 now. And he said he and his two friends were just driving down that village road after they were working in an olive oil press. This was in October. This was during the olive harvest season in Syria. And so they're driving, taking him back home. And suddenly they come under fire. And he says his two friends were killed. And he was severely disabled.

His hand was blown off. He had to get the rest of the arm amputated. And the other arm has barely functioned because of shrapnel that he received. He has five young kids. He struggles to feed kids. He struggles to feed them. He says he can't work, can't find work, can't afford his $8 physical therapy sessions. And he's hoping for compensation from the U.S. My future is destroyed. I have a family, kids. How is this their fault?

We have been speaking to him since 2019 when that raid happened. It's been four years. He says he was hoping to hear from the U.S. Army to speak with them about what happened, and he says he never did. If you're looking at it from the military perspective, if you have your people on the ground, well, how much time do you give that van? That's the key question. Is it five more seconds, 10 more seconds? I think that is the challenge for people involved in this kind of enterprise. And I do know that they considered taking out this compound with bombs, just dropping them from the sky. The ISIS Baghdadi compound entirely. Correct. They were just going to take

the whole- Through drone warfare, yeah. A drone or, you know, U.S. airstrikes from F-16s or other aircraft coming in, just take the whole compound out. They knew there were 11 children there. What they do is what's called a pattern of life. They watch a site for days, if not weeks, to see who's coming in, who's coming out. They knew there were a lot of children there. So General Frank McKenzie, the head of Central Command, went to the White House, talked to President Trump and said, I think we have to do a ground raid. And that's what they did. And again, as your people are going into the compound or near the compound, and unfortunately this van shows up, they're not going to give it a lot of time.

The bottom line is this is really a tragedy. But Daniel's reporting has shown that these guys, they had pay stubs. They said they were agricultural workers. It's not like they were sitting at the compound shooting at the helicopters. The only evidence of hostile intent by this van was it kept moving. There's no evidence that anyone in the van

was actually firing at the helicopters. Again, it just seems to be the van kept moving after the warning shots. I guess my question is, given the reporting that you have found out, Daniel, why has the military not bothered to contact the same person you did? Or why have they not further investigated the situation? In the documents that we received in this lawsuit, the Pentagon questions the veracity of the survivor accounts given to NPR. And yet it didn't do what it could have done.

We've been speaking to him on the phone. You can call him. You can contact the survivor. It never did. It never conducted a full formal investigation. All right. Time for a quick break. We'll be back in a moment.

And we're back. And Daniel, you know, you were saying that initially, according to the confidential documents you obtained, the Pentagon seemed to question the version of events that you articulated from the sole survivor in this van. Now, after your reporting, have you heard any of a sort of different assessment from the Pentagon? Well, we brought our findings to the Pentagon. They said no formal full investigation was open because they determined this civilian casualties claim to be not credible and they had nothing else to offer us. But I had also asked the Pentagon about a nonprofit group based in New York, the Zomia Center, which has taken up the case of the Syrian survivor of this airstrike. That group asked the Pentagon to reopen this file to take another look. And after we

inquired with the Pentagon about that, this group did hear back from the Defense Department saying that they would take a look at that request to reopen the file. I should say that we heard from three Congress members in response to our investigation. House Representative Sarah Jacobs from the House Armed Services Committee is calling for the Pentagon to reopen this case. She says she's deeply concerned by the report's finding flaws in the Pentagon's investigative process that may have resulted in dismissing credible claims of civilians maimed and killed. She believes that the Pentagon should reopen this investigation immediately and, quote, make amends if necessary. We also heard from Senator Dick Durbin. He says he's, quote, troubled by the findings of the NPR investigation. He thinks that the Pentagon should take a fresh look at past strikes where civilian harm has been alleged. And finally, we heard from Senator Chris Murphy on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who says, quote, it is inexcusable that this investigation was so flawed and clearly incomplete.

You know, last year, Tom, the Pentagon announced this plan to reduce the number of civilians killed in military operations. Do you have any sense of what those measures there about exactly how they would do this. Again, as I mentioned, the Baghdadi raid, they did a pattern of life. You watch a site before you attack. They realize there are 11 children there. They decided not to drop bombs and kill everyone, decided to go in on the ground. Clearly, in this case, they tried to limit civilian casualties. How are they going to do it in the future? Again, it's very vague language. We really don't know exactly how they're going to do it. I've spoken to several experts, former advisors for the Defense Department, including Larry Lewis of the Center for Naval Analyses, who worked specifically with the Pentagon on the

issue of civilian casualties. And he says, you know, this new plan to mitigate civilian casualties is a commitment to do better in the future, but they do not commit to relitigating past cases. But he still thinks that there is this new spirit at the Pentagon to do better and to prevent civilian casualties. And because of that new spirit, he thinks there might be reason for hope for the Syrian survivor, Barakat Ahmed Barakat, that maybe the Pentagon would be willing to look at

this case again. All right, well, let's leave it there for today. NPR's Daniel Estrin, thank you very much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. Thank you. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Tom Bowman. I cover the Pentagon. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.