Help us hold governments to account for civilians killed in Iraq and Syria

For eight years, Airwars has tracked every local report of civilians killed or injured by the US-led Coalition in the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Now, we need your support to include the 1,300 secret military reports on harm from US actions, which were recently obtained by the New York Times as part of their Civilian Casualty Files.

Documenting and archiving harm to civilians means we can learn far more about the true cost to civilians of this war, and help create a clearer route to accountability and justice for survivors. Yet our team is already fully stretched, monitoring other ongoing conflicts every day, including Russian actions in Syria, and the long running US campaign in Somalia. So we need your help reconciling this huge trove of military documents with our own extensive archive.

Civilian casualty files

Over the last eight years, almost 3,000 incidents have been locally reported by communities on local and social media, describing friends, relatives and neighbours allegedly killed or injured by the US-led Coalition in Iraq and Syria. Our comprehensive open access event database already enables journalists, researchers, affected communities, and investigators to hold the US and other militaries to account.

Now, by reconciling the New York Times’ Civilian Casualty Files, with our own comprehensive archives, we expect to uncover many cases where US military assessors have failed in their duty to properly understand and determine civilian casualties.

With your aid, our professional researchers – many from conflict-affected communities in Syria and Iraq – will be able to learn far more about the true cost to civilians of this war, and help create a clearer route to accountability and justice for survivors.