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There is credible evidence that US military air raids in Somalia have killed or wounded nearly two dozen civilians in the past two years, an international human rights group said on Tuesday, suggesting that the Pentagon is not adequately investigating potential casualties.

US Africa Command officials immediately disputed the allegations laid out in a report by Amnesty International and insisted that the military has investigated 18 cases of possible civilian casualties since 2017 and found that none were credible.

The report came the same day that a Somali intelligence official and two local residents said a US drone attack on Monday killed civilians.

Amnesty International said it analysed satellite imagery and other data and interviewed 65 witnesses and survivors of five specific air raids detailed in the report.

The report concludes that there is “credible evidence” that the United States was responsible for four of the attacks, and that it is plausible that the US may have conducted the fifth attack.

It said 14 civilians were killed and eight injured in the attacks.

“Amnesty International’s research points to a failure by the US and Somali governments to adequately investigate allegations of civilian casualties resulting from US operations in Somalia,” the report said, adding that the US doesn’t have a good process for survivors or victims’ families to self-report losses.

US Africa Command said it looked at the five attacks and concluded there were no civilian casualties.

In the fifth case, the command said there were no US attacks in that area on that day.

The group’s report and Defence Department officials also agreed that the attacks usually take place in hostile areas controlled by al-Shabab.

And those conditions, the report said, “prevented Amnesty International organisation from conducting on-site investigations and severely limited the organisation’s ability to freely gather testimonial and physical evidence.”

US defence officials said that American troops were on the ground at attack locations in a very limited number of cases.

Even in those instances, they said, US troops ordered attacks to protect local Somali forces they were accompanying, and there was little opportunity to investigate possible civilian casualties at that moment.

Still, the rights group concluded that the US military’s insistence that there have been zero civilian deaths is wrong.

— Al Jazeera