Chris Woods

‘Why did they bomb us?’ Urban civilian harm in Gaza, Syria and Israel from explosive weapons use‘ – which is published in Arabic, Hebrew and English – provides the first comparative analysis of two very different Israeli military campaigns. Applying the same open source monitoring methodology Airwars uses to track civilian harm caused by the […]

Tracking by Airwars across multiple conflicts during 2020 showed that the number of locally reported civilian deaths from the use of explosive weapons was down by two thirds compared to the previous year. Of these fatalities, around half were in the first two months of 2020. This suggested a possible ‘Covid effect’ – a significant […]

Major Conflict Monitoring Civilian harm from foreign military action in all tracked conflicts have remained low, with little change observed in November compared to previous months. In Syria, Russian actions have decreased from October. It has also been a quieter month for US-led actions in Syria, although reports of US-led strikes on Iranian forces in […]

The release is a major breakthrough in transparency and could help Iraqis and Syrians finally secure apologies and even reparations for the death of family members

A joint report ‘Seeing through the rubble: The civilian impact of the use of explosive weapons in the fight against ISIS‘ by Airwars and PAX examines the dire and long-lasting effects of explosive weapons on civilian populations in towns and cities, in recent international military campaigns in Mosul, Raqqa and Hawijah. Explosive weapons kill and […]

Conflict in Libya ramps up as sense of calm presides over Syria and Iraq.

Civilian deaths from Russian actions in Syria dominated Airwars monitoring following the defeat of ISIS in March 2019.

Responding to an ongoing US Department of Defense review process on civilian harm mitigation, Airwars submitted a short interim briefing paper outlining 25 better practice recommendations. These were based primarily on our granular engagement with civilian casualty assessment cells within the US military over several years. Our recommendations ranged from the US military ensuring wherever […]

Recent improvements in civilian casualty reporting remain in place, despite transition from Obama to Trump

A detailed assessment of transparency and accountability issues among the 13-member alliance. The audit – commissioned by UK defence think tank the Remote Control Project – worked with four sample militaries (the US, UK, Canada and Denmark) to build a detailed understanding of how militaries track and assess civilian casualty assessments. It also gauges transparency […]

Major military developments November 2015 saw the greatest number of Coalition actions yet reported in the 16-month war, with 529 airstrikes in Iraq and 232 in Syria. Overall, a total of 5,638 air strikes had been carried out in Iraq, and 2,944 in Syria to the end of the month. The 13 allies had between […]

Major developments The US-led Coalition ended October 2015 having carried out 5,107 airstrikes in Iraq and 2,712 in Syria so far in its 14-month air war against Daesh. Some 28,578 bombs and missiles had been dropped by 13 allies. There were 22 reported incidents of concern in October 2015 – ten in Syria and 13 […]

Major developments US-led Coalition strikes allegedly killed as many as 276 civilians in up to 25 problem events in Iraq and Syria in September 2015 In twelve of these events, there appears enough credible evidence  – coupled with confirmation of allied airstrikes in the vicinity – to suggest that a minimum of 86 civilians were […]

Major Developments 6.548 Coalition airstrikes had been carried out to the end of August 2015 according to an Airwars count. Of these, 62% targeted Daesh in Iraq (4,080 strikes) with 2,468 airstrikes in Syria In total, Coalition aircraft had dropped 22,478 bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria to August 31st Airwars recorded 12 new alleged civilian […]

ABOVE: General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, takes questions during a ‘town hall’ session in Baghdad July 18th (US Army/ Spc. Tristan D. Bolden) Additional reporting by Basile Simon, Kinda Haddad and Latif Habib Major Developments  In the two weeks since our last report, the Coalition has carried out 246 new airstrikes in […]

ABOVE: Burnt out wreckage of a car carrying seven alleged Al Nusra Front members, destroyed in a US targeted strike in Syria July 8 2015 (via SNN) Additional reporting by Basile Simon, Kinda Haddad and Latif Habib. Major Developments Casualty recorders publish the name of a 200th alleged victim of coalition airstrikes in Syria. In Iraq, […]

ABOVE: Residents of Tal Abyad region flee the fighting between Islamic State and YPG Kurds, June  2015 (SNN) Major Developments Coalition ends 45th week of bombings having carried out 4,673 airstrikes on Islamic State At least 6 and as many as 20 civilians were reported killed in a series of coalition airstrikes on June 13th, in support of […]

ABOVE: Dutch MPs visit an Air Task Force facility, June 5 2015 (Dutch MoD) Major Developments New figures show coalition has now dropped more than 15,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria, in more than 4,500 airstrikes There were four new incidents reported in which it was claimed coalition aircraft may have caused civilian or […]

ABOVE: Scene of devastation at the town of al Hawijah near Kirkuk, Iraq after a US airstrike destroyed a Daesh IED factory Major Developments In single greatest claim of coalition-inflicted civilian deaths since August, up to 70 non-combatants are reported killed in an airstrike on Iraqi town of al-Hawijah Coalition denies it has seen evidence […]

ABOVE: Aftermath of a devastating explosion in Mosul May 21st 2015 which killed between 12-50 civilians according to reports (via Mosul Ateka) Major Developments Two new civilian casualty incidents are reported for the past week. The destruction of an ISIL arms dump in Mosul is said to kill 12-50 non-combatants. And in Syria, up to 10 female agricultural […]

Major developments After nine months of strikes the coalition finally admits its actions have killed civilians – confirming the “likely” death of at least two children in Syria A last-minute spate of Coalition airstrikes fails to prevent Islamic State from over-running the crucial city of Ramadi in Iraq The 4,000th airstrike since operations began in August […]