Airwars maintains an extensive all-source database of known allegations in which civilians and friendly forces have been reported killed by the Coalition or Russia in Iraq and Syria. Our individual case studies include photographs, videos, names of the dead, and links to all known sources.

Coalition 2017 June As the last few ISIL-occupied neighbourhoods in Mosul were targeted, the Coalition’s main focus shifted to Raqqa	Russia 2015-2017 Russian airstrikes in support of the Assad regime have seen thousands of Syrian civilians credibly reported killed
Coalition 2017 May With the battle for Mosul now longer than that for Stalingrad, civilian casualties continued to rise	Coalition 2017 April Significant civilian casuialties are reported as the major West Mosul and Raqqa campaigns continue
Coalition 2017 March Unprecedented numbers of civilians were reported killed during the assaults on Mosul and Raqqa	Coalition 2017 Jan-February With President Trump promising renewed vigour in the anti-ISIL war, the implications for civilians were unclear
Coalition 2016 Oct-Dec The long-awaited assault on Mosul and a major offensive around Raqqa led to significant civilian deaths	Coalition 2016 July-Sept A Coalition-backed ground campaign to free Manbij from ISIL led to the heaviest reported casualties so far
Coalition 2016 April-June Intense Coalition strikes at Manbij, Mosul and Raqqa saw large numbers of civilians killed and injured	Coalition 2016 Jan-March The first three months of 2016 saw numerous civilian deaths reported from Coalition actions in Iraq and Syria
Coalition 2015 Here you’ll find our complete records for all alleged Coalition civilian casualty events for the year 2015	Coalition 2014 Our complete records for all known civilian casualty events for the first five months of the Coalition war

Summary findings on Coalition airstrikes:
August 8th 2014 to June 21st 2017

To June 8th 2017 an overall total of between 11,424 and 16,845 civilian non-combatant fatalities had been alleged from 1,605 separate reported Coalition incidents, in both Iraq and Syria. Of these, Airwars presently estimates that a minimum of 4,118 to 6,360 civilians are likely to have died in Coalition actions. However, some caution is needed given the significant challenges of casualty verification at present.

See our separate tracking of alleged Russian events here

The Coalition has so far confirmed 109 of 1,605 claimed incidents as causing 404 civilian fatalities – 71 events in Iraq and 38 in Syria. In addition 80 further civilian deaths have been confirmed in unidentified incidents. Airwars estimates that between 694 and 1,089 or more non-combatants in fact died overall in these confirmed incidents.

In addition to these confirmed events, it is our provisional view at Airwars that between 3,424 and 5,271 civilian non-combatants appear likely to have been killed in 648 further incidents where there is fair reporting publicly available of an event – and where Coalition strikes were confirmed in the near vicinity on that date. Some 172 of these likely incidents were in Iraq (1,442 to 2,131 reported deaths) and 476 events in Syria (with a reported fatality range of 1,977 to 3,133.)

At least 896 children and 518 women are reported to be among those killed in confirmed and likely events, along with 3,838 or more civilians reportedly injured. Airwars presently lists the names of 1,862 reported civilian fatality victims from confirmed and likely Coalition events.

Across both nations, 67 alleged civilian casualty incidents have in our view been discounted, ie are highly unlikely to have involved Coalition aircraft (504 to 708 claimed deaths). An additional 206 to 300 civilians reportedly died in 38 events where the reporting appears fair, but where it remains unclear whether the Coalition carried out any attack in the vicinity on the date in question.

A further 1,774 to 1,984 claimed deaths are attributed to 337 alleged Coalition airstrikes which are presently weakly reported or single-sourced.

An additional 4,405 to 6,832 asserted fatalities resulted from 322 contested events (for example, claims that the Iraq Air Force or ground actions might instead have been responsible.)

Some 54 further contested events (344 to 542 deaths) may have involved Russian aircraft in Syria. And 22 additional contested events (156 to 203 deaths) were attributed variously both to the Coalition and to Turkey.

The Coalition has additionally conceded four ‘friendly fire’ incidents. It has confirmed it likely killed Iraq Army forces at Fallujah on December 18th 2015, which the public record indicates killed 10 to 23 Iraqi troops. On September 17th 2016, between 15 and 65 Assad regime troops died in a Coalition action in Syria. On October 5th 2016, between 18 and 21 friendly Sunni tribal militia were killed in a Coalition strike near Qayyarah. And on April 11th 2017 the Coalition killed 18 SDF forces near Tabqah in Syria. An additional 180 or more ‘friendly fire’ deaths of allied ground forces have been attributed to the Coalition from 33 more claimed incidents, with varying levels of credibility.

To January 31st 2017, the Coalition tells Airwars it had provisionally investigated 319 alleged casualty incidents in total, of which it had deemed 88 cases to be credible and 15 investigations to be still open. It had additionally found 212 cases to be “not credible.” As of January 31st, Airwars had itself tracked 876 alleged civilian casualty event – meaning the Coalition had failed to assess 64% of all known claimed incidents at that time.

For the latest Coalition civilian casualty allegations for Iraq and Syria please see here

Estimated minimum civilian deaths from Coalition airstrikes from August 2014

Updated hourly. The map plots all Confirmed and Fair minimum civilian fatality events from Coalition airstrikes in both Iraq and Syria, aggregated by unique location.
Graphics by Airwars – Basile Simon. Geolocation by Christiaan Triebert.

For the latest Coalition civilian casualty allegations for Iraq and Syria please see here

How we grade alleged incidents

Because of wide variations in the quality of casualty recording, Airwars uses a grading system for events alleging non-combatant or ‘friendly fire’ deaths from Coalition airstrikes. These are:

Confirmed: Where the coalition or an individual ally has accepted responsibility for the killing of non-combatants or allied forces in a particular incident.

Fair: Reasonable level of public reporting of alleged incident from two or more generally credible sources (often with biographical, photographic or video evidence). Crucially, there are also confirmed coalition strikes in the near vicinity for that date. We believe these cases in particular require urgent investigation.

Fair, but with no confirmed strikes: Locations provided by the Coalition in its daily reports can be overly vague, and on occasion it has not reported strikes on particular locales. At other times the Coalition might state categorically that it did not carry out an airstrike at a named location on a particular date – despite fair evidence of an airstrike in the vicinity.

Weak: Single source claims. Even so, these may feature biographical or photographic detail from a reputable source, with coalition strikes also confirmed in the vicinity.

Contested Events: Where there are claims of both coalition and Iraqi or Syrian aircraft having carried out strikes at a location.

Discounted: Those cases where our researchers or others have identified either that those killed were combatants; that no Coalition or Russian strike took place at the location; or where an incident did not appear to result in any civilian casualties.

Also see our Methodology

Additional resources

Airwars monitors media and social media sites in both Iraq and Syria for claims of coalition-inflicted casualties. We also collate reports from regionally-focused groups, and follow up on allegations with the coalition where possible.

Extensive additional civilian casualties are caused by other parties to both the Iraq and Syria conflicts. These include Iraqi and Syrian government forces and allied militias; and militant and terror groups including Islamic State/Daesh, and the al-Nusra Front.

A number of monitoring groups based in the Middle East and elsewhere issue daily reports which cover not just civilians killed by the coalition, but all of those affected by the wars in Iraq and Syria. You can find more information below:

Syrian Network for Human Rights
Violations Documentation Center
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
Raqaa is Being Slaughtered Silently
White Helmets
Bellingcat (geolocation of strikes)
Iraq Body Count
United Nations Mission in Iraq
Coalition Press Office