After the U.S. raid targeting Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, NPR's  @DanielEstrin &  @lalarian uncovered claims that Syrian civilians were killed & wounded, tracking down a survivor.

A year later, NPR followed up on the case & how the U.S. military responded... https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/928161356/pentagon-says-2-men-killed-in-baghdadi-raid-were-combatants-but-offers-little-pr

"We had pumpkin seeds & bought coffee on the road and were having fun," survivor Barakat told NPR. "We were driving through the village of Barisha. At that moment, the helicopters arrived. Suddenly, we were hit. I didn't know what was going on. I was just trying to escape death."

"The men fled the van, but one of them collapsed with shrapnel in his legs. Barakat said he cradled his friend outside the van when helicopter fire hit them again, killing the cousins and tearing off Barakat's hand that had been holding up his friend's head."

NPR collected testimony from the suvivor, video of the aftermath, and autopsy reports... Despite a wealth of evidence gathered, the U.S. military told NPR it assessed the civilian casualty allegation to be non-credible...

The military told NPR that Barakat & others in the car were targeted after they demonstrated "hostile intent" by not turning around when the military fired "warning shots" & because after direct fire, the men fled towards the compound—instead of away—without their hands up.

This case echoes criticisms that academics & legal scholars have been making for years about how the military decides what "hostile intent" is.

Two detailed studies:

By @Tom_Gregory: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0967010618820450

By @HarvardLawHRP: https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Tackling-Tough-Choices-Hostile-Intent-HLSIHRC-2016.pdf

They argue it's not just about a few cases, but a recurring problem in the military's targeting process & tactics / techniques/ procedures:

Do civilians even know what a “warning shot” is? That it means to turn around? That they should put their hands up after being hit by fire?

Based on my interviews with hundreds of civilians in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, almost none of them know these things. Instead, when being fired upon, most civilians' immediate instinct is to panic and try to escape by speeding up or finding cover/ a place to hide from fire.

Civilians don't think of these actions as hostile intent. But if the military isn't interviewing civilian survivors for their casualty assessments—like they didn't do in this case or hundreds of others—are they really trying to understand whether their targeting process is sound?