Monitor
Airwars closely monitors conflicts, to help improve understanding of how recent wars have impacted on civilians. Our regional researchers track local civilian harm allegations from news outlets and social media, with a present focus on Iraq, Syria and Libya. Other sources we monitor include international and local civic society groups; military reporting; and claims by non-state actors. Together, our monitoring helps reveal what civilians themselves are experiencing during times of war.
Assess
Airwars assesses each civilian harm incident to determine who was allegedly killed or injured, and by which belligerent. As a transparency organisation, we archive every known source, including associated imagery. All assessments are published in our growing civilian casualties database, alongside the names of thousands of reported victims. Since we began in 2014, we have tracked and assessed tens of thousands of reported civilian deaths in conflicts.
Engage
Our primary aim at Airwars is to help reduce harm to civilians. We do this both by improving public knowledge of how battlefield casualties occur; and by working where we can with militaries – helping them to improve their own understanding and admission of where, when and how civilians are harmed. Our advocacy team also engages with politicians and with broader civic society, to ensure civilian harm issues are given the highest priority.
Investigate
Airwars works closely with journalists and researchers in the field - helping them to better identify reported civilian harm claims. And we also incorporate their findings into our own research - ensuring we build up as comprehensive a picture of battlefield casualties as we can. Through partnerships with major news organisations, our investigators have also published numerous in-depth reports on civilian harm - which in turn can help change public and political understanding.
Civilian casualties archive
Victim in focus
Mohammad Abd Al Hameed Jahjaj was allegedly killed by a US-led Coalition strike on September 23, 2014 in Kafr Daryan, Syria.
Mohammad Abd Al Hameed Jahjah likely died alongside his sister, mother and father when the house they were in was destroyed. The incident was reported by multiple local sources that included eyewitness accounts. CENTCOM maintains that the US-led Coalition was not responsible for the deaths, claiming the images were from an earlier Syrian Regime attack.
This week we launched our monitoring of US counterterror actions in Somalia - joining ongoing tracking by Airwars of civilian harm in Libya, Syria and Iraq. Overall, we've recorded more than 53,000 locally reported deaths since we began five years ago. https://t.co/YjLecSQwL4
— Airwars (@airwars) February 28, 2020
Strong words - though Turkey's actions in northern Syria still remain unilateral, separate from both @CJTFOIR and @NATO. https://t.co/k0WOJtCDfv
— Airwars (@airwars) February 28, 2020
Somalia: Hundreds of locals attended the recent funeral of Mohamud Haji Sirad - killed in a US airstrike on February 24th near Jilib.
— Airwars (@airwars) February 27, 2020
Alleged civilian harm from US strikes in Somalia is currently at a higher level than Coalition actions in Iraq/ Syria. https://t.co/f2NZVTjgyW pic.twitter.com/KT65X1NDpt
#أمريكا تعزز قواعدها شمال شرقي #سوريا بدخول 300 شاحنةhttps://t.co/ijFZ8O867T
— الحروب الجوية (@AirwarsArabic) February 27, 2020