WASHINGTON, 17 November 2021, (TON): The Pentagon said “US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III has ordered the military’s top commander for the Middle East to brief him on details of a 2019 airstrike that killed dozens of women and children in Syria.”

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said “Austin requested the briefing after allegations by the New York Times that top officers and civilian officials sought to conceal the casualties of the strike.”

The 2019 strike, exposed by the NYT over the weekend, took place in the town of Baghuz, in Daesh’s last holdout before the end of its so-called caliphate.

A drone controller witnessed a jet drop a bomb on what the operator estimated to be 50 women and children, but the military has now admitted that 80 people were killed, dozens of them women and children.

“Who dropped that?” a confused analyst typed on a secure chat system being used by those monitoring the drone, two people who reviewed the chat log recalled. The NYT reported that another responded: “We just dropped on 50 women and children.”