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| Near the height of the war against the Islamic State group in Syria, a sudden riot of explosions rocked the country’s largest dam, a towering, 18-story structure on the Euphrates River that held back a 25-mile-long reservoir above a valley where hundreds of thousands of people lived. | 在叙利亚与伊斯兰国组织交战正激烈之时，一场突如其来的爆炸震动了该国最大的大坝，这座18层楼高的建筑坐落在幼发拉底河上，在山谷上方蓄出了一座40公里长的水库，山谷中居住着数十万人。 |
| The Tabqa Dam was a strategic linchpin controlled by the Islamic State group. The explosions March 26, 2017, knocked dam workers to the ground. A fire spread and crucial equipment failed. The flow of the Euphrates River suddenly had no way through, the reservoir began to rise and authorities used loudspeakers to warn people downstream to flee. | 塔卜卡大坝是伊斯兰国组织控制下的战略要地。2017年3月26日的爆炸把大坝工人掀翻在地。大火蔓延，关键设备失灵。幼发拉底河的水流突然无法通过，水库开始上涨，当局用扩音器警告下游的人逃离。 |
| The Islamic State group, the Syrian government and Russia blamed the United States, but the dam was on the U.S. military’s “no-strike list” of protected civilian sites, and the commander of the U.S. offensive at the time, then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, said allegations of U.S. involvement were based on “crazy reporting.” | 伊斯兰国组织、叙利亚政府和俄罗斯指责美国，但大坝却在美军列为受保护平民地点的“非打击名单”上，并且当时还是中将的美国进攻指挥官斯蒂芬·J·汤森说，有关美国参与的指控是基于“荒唐的报道”。 |
| In fact, members of a top secret U.S. special operations unit called Task Force 9 had struck the dam using some of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal, including at least one BLU-109 bunker-buster bomb, according to two former senior officials. And they had done it despite a military report warning not to bomb the dam, because the damage could cause a flood that might kill tens of thousands of civilians. | 事实上，据两名前高级官员称，美国最高机密特种作战部队第9特遣部队的成员使用美国军火库中一些最大的常规炸弹袭击了大坝，其中包括至少一枚BLU-109钻地炸弹。尽管有军事报告警告不要袭击大坝，因为破坏大坝可能会引发导致数万平民丧生的洪水，但他们还是这样做了。 |
| The decision to strike the dam would normally have been made high up the chain of command. But the former officials said the task force used a procedural shortcut reserved for emergencies, allowing it to launch the attack without clearance. | 袭击大坝的决定通常是由指挥系统的高层做出的。但这两位前官员表示，特遣部队使用了为紧急情况预留的程序捷径，允许其在未经许可的情况下发动袭击。 |
| The two former officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were not authorized to discuss the strikes, said some officers overseeing the air war viewed the task force’s actions as reckless. | 这两名前官员在发言时要求不具名，因为他们没有被授权讨论那次袭击，他们说，一些负责空战的官员认为特遣部队的行动不计后果。 |
| Even with careful planning, hitting a dam with such large bombs would likely have been seen by top leaders as unacceptably dangerous, said Scott F. Murray, a retired Air Force colonel. | 退役空军上校斯科特·F·默里说，即使经过周密计划，高层领导人也可能认为用如此大的炸弹击中大坝的危险程度是不可接受的。 |
| “Using a 2,000-pound bomb against a restricted target like a dam is extremely difficult and should have never been done on the fly,” he said. “Worst case, those munitions could have absolutely caused the dam to fail.” | “使用900公斤重的炸弹打击像水坝这样的被禁目标非常困难，不应该是临时起意的行动，”他说。“最坏的情况是，这些弹药绝对会导致大坝倒塌。” |
| After the strikes, dam workers stumbled on an ominous piece of good fortune: Five floors deep in the dam’s control tower, a U.S. BLU-109 bunker buster lay on its side, scorched but intact — a dud. If it had exploded, experts say, the whole dam might have failed. | 袭击发生后，大坝工人发现他们碰上了不幸中的万幸：在大坝控制塔往下五层的深处，一枚美国BLU-109钻地炸弹落在一旁，烧焦但完好无损——一个哑弹。专家说，如果它爆炸了，整座大坝可能已经倒塌。 |
| In response to questions from The New York Times, U.S. Central Command, which oversaw the air war in Syria, acknowledged dropping three 2,000-pound bombs but denied targeting the dam or sidestepping procedures. A spokesperson said that the bombs hit only the towers attached to the dam, not the dam itself, and while top leaders had not been notified beforehand, limited strikes on the towers had been preapproved by the command. | 在回答《纽约时报》的提问时，负责监督叙利亚空战的美国中央司令部承认投下了三枚900公斤重的炸弹，但否认瞄准大坝或绕过程序。一位发言人说，炸弹只击中了大坝上的塔楼，而不是大坝本身，虽然没有事先通知最高领导人，但指挥部已经预先批准了对塔楼的有限打击。 |
| “Analysis had confirmed that strikes on the towers attached to the dam were not considered likely to cause structural damage to the Tabqa Dam itself,” said Capt. Bill Urban, the chief spokesperson for the command. Noting that the dam did not collapse, he added, “That analysis has proved accurate.” | 该司令部首席发言人比尔·厄本上尉说：“分析证实，对与大坝相连的塔楼的袭击被认为不太可能对塔卜卡大坝本身造成结构性破坏。”他指出大坝并没有倒塌，他还说，“事实证明，这种分析是准确的。” |
| But the two former officials, who were directly involved in the air war at the time, and Syrian witnesses interviewed by the Times, said the situation was far more dire than the U.S. military publicly said. | 但当时直接参与空战的两名前官员以及接受《纽约时报》采访的叙利亚目击者表示，情况远比美军公开所说的要可怕。 |
| Critical equipment lay in ruins and the dam stopped functioning entirely. The reservoir quickly rose 50 feet and nearly spilled over the dam, which engineers said would have been catastrophic. The situation grew so desperate that enemies in the yearslong conflict — the Islamic State group, the Syrian government, Syrian defense forces and the United States — called an emergency cease-fire so civilian engineers could race to avert a disaster. | 关键设备被毁，大坝完全停止运作。水库迅速上升1.27米，几乎溢出大坝，工程师们表示一旦溢出，后果将是灾难性的。局势危急，以至于处于连年冲突中的敌人——伊斯兰国组织、叙利亚政府、叙利亚国防军和美国——呼吁紧急停火，以便民用工程师能够抓紧时间修复以避免灾难。 |
| Engineers who worked at the dam, who did not want to be identified because they feared reprisal, said it was only through quick work that the dam and the people living downstream of it were saved. | 在大坝工作的工程师因为害怕遭到报复而不愿透露姓名，他们说只有快速修复才能拯救大坝和生活在下游的人们。 |
| “The destruction would have been unimaginable,” a former director at the dam said. | “否则造成的毁灭是难以想象的，”大坝的一位前主管说。 |
| The United States went into the war against the Islamic State group in 2014 with targeting rules intended to protect civilians and spare critical infrastructure. | 美国在2014年与伊斯兰国组织开战，制定攻击目标规则是为了保护平民和备用关键基础设施。 |
| But the Islamic State group sought to exploit those rules, using civilian no-strike sites as weapons depots, command centers and fighting positions. That included the Tabqa Dam. | 但伊斯兰国组织试图利用这些规则，将民用非打击地点用作武器库、指挥中心和战斗阵地。其中包括塔卜卡大坝。 |
| The task force’s solution to this problem too often was to set aside the rules intended to protect civilians, current and former military personnel said. | 现任和前任军事人员表示，特遣部队对这个问题的解决方案往往是将旨在保护平民的规则搁置一旁。 |
| Soon, the task force was justifying the majority of its airstrikes using emergency self-defense procedures intended to save troops in life-threatening situations, even when no troops were in danger. That allowed it to quickly hit targets — including no-strike sites — that would have otherwise been off-limits. | 很快，特遣部队就使用紧急自卫程序证明了其大部分空袭的合理性，称它们是在营救面临生命危险的部队，即便没有部队处于危险之中。这使得它能够快速打击原本不能打击的目标——包括禁止空袭的地点。 |
| Perhaps no single incident shows the brazen use of self-defense rules and the potentially devastating costs more than the strike on the Tabqa Dam. | 也许没有任何事件比袭击塔卜卡大坝更能说明对自卫规则的滥用以及潜在的毁灭性代价。 |
| It is unclear what spurred the task force attack March 26. | 目前尚不清楚是什么促使特遣部队于3月26日发动袭击。 |
| Dam workers said they saw no heavy fighting or casualties that day before the bombs hit. | 大坝工作人员说，炸弹袭击前一天他们没有看到激烈的战斗或人员伤亡。 |
| What is clear is that Task Force 9 operators called in a self-defense strike, which meant they did not have to seek permission from the chain of command. | 现在明确的是，第9特遣部队的操作员发起了自卫打击，这意味着他们不必寻求指挥系统的许可。 |
| A military report obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit shows the operators contacted a B-52 bomber and requested an immediate airstrike on three targets. But the report makes no mention of enemy forces firing or heavy casualties. Instead, it says the operators requested the strikes for “terrain denial.” | 通过《信息自由法》诉讼获得的一份军事报告显示，操作员联络了一架B-52轰炸机，并要求立即对三个目标进行空袭。但报告没有提到敌军开火或重大伤亡。相反，报告说操作员要求袭击是为了“地面拒止”。 |
| A senior Defense Department official disputed that the task force overstepped its authority by striking without informing top leaders. The official said the strikes were conducted “within approved guidance” set by Townsend, the commander of the campaign against the Islamic State group. | 国防部一名高级官员对该特遣部队在未通知最高领导人的情况下进行打击是越权的说法提出异议。这位官员说，袭击是在对伊斯兰国组织打击行动的指挥官汤森“批准的指导下”进行的。 |
| First, the B-52 dropped bombs set to explode in the air above the targets to avoid damaging the structures, the senior military official said. But when those failed to dislodge the enemy fighters, the task force called for the bomber to drop three 2,000-pound bombs, including at least one bunker buster, this time set to explode when they hit the concrete. | 这名高级军事官员表示，首先，B-52轰炸机投下了将在目标上空爆炸的炸弹，以避免破坏这些建筑。但当这些炸弹没能赶走敌人的战斗人员时，特遣部队要求轰炸机投下三枚900公斤的炸弹，其中至少包括一枚掩体炸弹，这一次，炸弹击中混凝土时就会爆炸。 |
| Two workers were at the dam that day. One of them, an electrical engineer, recalled Islamic State fighters positioned in the northern tower as usual that day, but no fighting underway when they went into the dam to work on the cooling system. | 那天有两名工人在大坝。其中一名电气工程师回忆说，当天伊斯兰国武装分子像往常一样部署在北塔，但当他们进入大坝进行冷却系统工作时，没有发生战斗。 |
| Hours later, a series of booms knocked them to the floor. The room filled with smoke. The engineer found his way out through a normally locked door that had been blown open. He froze when he saw the wings of a U.S. B-52. | 几个小时后，一连串的轰鸣将他们击倒在地。房间里充满烟雾。工程师从一扇通常锁着的门逃了出来，这扇门当时被炸开了。当他看到一架美国B-52轰炸机的机翼时，不禁呆住了。 |
| The dominoes of a potential disaster were now in motion. Damage to the control room caused water pumps to seize. Flooding then short-circuited electrical equipment. With no power to run crucial machinery, water couldn’t pass through the dam. There was a crane that could raise the emergency floodgate, but it, too, had been damaged by fighting. | 潜在灾难的多米诺骨牌开始运转。控制室损坏导致水泵卡住。然后漫出的水导致电气设备短路。由于没有电源来运行重要的机器，水无法通过大坝。有一台起重机可以升起紧急闸门，但它也在战斗中被破坏了。 |
| The engineer hid inside until he saw the B-52 fly away and then found a motorcycle. He sped to the house where the dam manager lived and explained what had happened. | 工程师躲在里面，直到看见B-52飞走，然后他找到了一辆摩托车，迅速赶到大坝管理者住的房子，解释了发生的事情。 |
| Engineers in Islamic State territory called their former colleagues in the Syrian government, who then contacted allies in the Russian military for help. | 伊斯兰国领土内的工程师给他们在叙利亚政府的前同事打了电话，后者随后联系俄罗斯军方的盟友寻求帮助。 |
| A few hours after the strike, a special desk phone reserved for directed communications between the United States and Russia started ringing in an operations center in Qatar. When a coalition officer picked up, a Russian officer warned that U.S. airstrikes had caused serious damage to the dam and there was no time to waste, according to a coalition official. | 空袭几小时后，在卡塔尔的一个作战中心，一部专门用于美国和俄罗斯之间直接通信的特殊桌上电话响了起来。据一名联军官员说，当一名联军军官接起电话时，电话那头一名俄罗斯军官警告称，美国的空袭已对大坝造成了严重破坏，不能再浪费时间了。 |
| Less than 24 hours after the strikes, U.S.-backed forces, Russian and Syrian officials and the Islamic State group coordinated a pause in hostilities. A team of 16 workers — some from the Islamic State group, some from the Syrian government, some from U.S. allies — drove to the site, according to the engineer, who was with the group. | 空袭后不到24小时，美国支持的部队、俄罗斯和叙利亚官员以及伊斯兰国组织协调暂停敌对行动。这名工程师说，一个由16名工作人员组成的团队驱车前往现场，其中一些来自伊斯兰国组织，一些来自叙利亚政府，还有一些来自美国的盟友。 |
| They succeeded in repairing the crane, which eventually allowed the floodgates to open, saving the dam. | 他们成功地修复了吊车，最终打开水闸，拯救了大坝。 |
| The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces dismissed reports of serious damage as propaganda. A spokesperson said the coalition had struck the dam with only “light weapons, so as not to cause damage.” | 美国支持的叙利亚民主力量驳斥了有关严重破坏的报道，称其为宣传。一名发言人表示，为了不造成破坏，联军只用了“轻武器”袭击大坝。 |
| A short time later, Townsend denied the dam was a target and said, “When strikes occur on military targets, at or near the dam, we use noncratering munitions to avoid unnecessary damage to the facility.” | 不久之后，汤森否认大坝是袭击目标，并表示：“当袭击发生在大坝或附近的军事目标时，我们使用非成坑性弹药，以避免对设施造成不必要的破坏。” |
| No disciplinary action was taken against the task force, the senior officials said. The secret unit continued to strike targets using the same types of self-defense justifications it had used on the dam. | 这些高级官员说，特遣部队没有受到任何纪律处分。这支秘密部队继续使用它在大坝行动中使用过的各类自卫理由来打击目标。 |
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