Investigations

كنصفرة, Kansafra, Idlib, Syria

LOCATION

At least one civilian, a child, was killed and one to two others were injured in alleged Russian airstrikes while grazing a flock of sheep on the outskirts of Kansafra on September 3, 2021. Idlib Plus reported that the child “Ali Ahmed Al-Brouk” was killed in Russian airstrikes on the town of Kansafra. Syrian Network for

Summary

(1 child)

3 named, 1 familiy identified

الفريكة, Al Farika, Idlib, Syria

LOCATION

A least one civilian, a 17 year old girl, was killed and one to two others were injured in alleged Russian or regime strikes on Farika village on September 2, 2021. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a woman named Fatimah Adnan Hussein was killed while other civilians were injured in Syrian regime forces’

Summary

(1 child)

عفرين, Afrin, Aleppo, Syria

LOCATION

Between five and eight civilians, including four to five children, were injured in alleged Syrian Democratic Forces strikes on Afrin on August 30, 2021. Syrian Civil Defense reported that seven civilians, including four children, were injured in missile shelling carried out by the alleged Syrian Democratic Forces. The “Zaman Al-Wasl” correspondent also put the toll at

Summary

Civilian infrastructure

School

5–8

Syrian Democratic Forces

6 named, 1 familiy identified

جلين, Jillen, Daraa, Syria

LOCATION

Between one and two civilians, including a woman, were killed and four others, including a woman, were injured in alleged Iranian or regime strikes on Jillin on August 29, 2021. According to Syrian Civil Defense, two civilians were killed and four others were injured in missile and artillery shelling by the regime in the neighborhoods

Summary

(1 woman)

Iranian Military, Syrian Regime

طريق السد, Tareeq Al Sad, Daraa, Syria

LOCATION

Between two and three civilians, including two men from the same family, were killed and up to four others were wounded in alleged Iranian or regime surface-to-surface missile strikes and artillery shelling on Tareeq al-Sad on August 29, 2021. According to Syrian Civil Defense (SCD), two civilians were killed and four others were injured in

Summary

2 – 3

(2 men)

2–4

Iranian Military, Syrian Regime

2 named, 1 familiy identified

As warfare changes, the UK’s protection of civilians falls further behind

Published

August 27, 2021

Written by

Megan Karlshoej-Pedersen

Assisted by

Georgia Edwards

Web link

As the international war against ISIS enters its eighth year, the UK must urgently improve its approach to the protection of civilians and civilian harm monitoring, reports Airwars' advocacy team.

Over the last decade, warfare has undergone significant changes. Countries such as the UK and US have increasingly done their best to avoid large-scale ground deployments of their own troops, focusing instead on supporting local forces, for instance by providing air power.

Through the monitoring of nearly 60,000 locally alleged civilian deaths caused by belligerents across multiple conflicts, Airwars has documented the risks to civilians that this form of engagement can pose in nations like Iraq and Syria, with heavy uses of explosive weapons in urban environments often leading to very significant civilian casualties and major destruction of civilian infrastructure.

Despite acknowledging the potential risks from recent actions, which saw “the most significant urban combat to take place since World War II”, the UK has failed to improve its approach to the Protection of Civilians (POC). In fact, the UK remains hesitant to openly acknowledge harm from its own actions. Leaving behind this current approach, by introducing public transparency and accountability for identification, review and admissions of casualties is vital to reduce present and future civilian casualties.

This article will assess current UK government action with regard to developing and updating its protection of civilian policies.

The Ministry of Defence

One of the most comprehensive reviews of UK military action in recent times, the 2016 Chilcot report, repeatedly emphasised that the MoD has failed to accurately estimate possible civilian harm that would arise from the 2003-2011 war in Iraq. In fact, the report states the MoD mistakenly estimated the war would ‘only’ cost civilian lives in the “low hundreds”. In reality, Iraq Body Count estimated that more than 114,000 civilians died as a result of violence in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.

The Chilcot report called for the UK to improve how it reaches pre-conflict estimates of civilian harm, declaring that a ‘government has a responsibility to make every reasonable effort to identify and understand the likely and actual effects of its military actions on civilians.’ It also said governments should make ‘greater efforts in the post-conflict period to determine the number of civilian casualties’ and to understand the broader impact of these actions.

In response, MoD officials pledged to improve the protection of civilians in the future. Nevertheless, the key challenges to effective POC identified in the Chilcot report persist to this day, including a lack of accountability; a lack of understanding of the impact of British airstrikes on the ground; and a false belief that the use of ‘smart’ guided munitions might automatically lead to fewer casualties.

This is highlighted by the MoD’s continued claim that it has evidence of only a single civilian casualty from its ongoing seven-year campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. This does not mean, as the MoD has repeatedly emphasised, that they believe their actions have only caused a single civilian death, but only that they claim to have the evidence of one casualty.

However the US-led Coalition has itself concluded that fifteen additional civilians were killed in at least three actions in Iraq and Syria which are known to have been British airstrikes.

Airwars, along with other monitoring organisations, humanitarian organisations, and news outlets, have demonstrated that their own mechanisms to capture civilian harm reports are often far more accurate than those of militaries. For the past two years for example, the majority of officially declared civilian harm reports by the US-led Coalition originated with Airwars, rather than internal military reports. The UK government must therefore reflect on why it has consistently failed to incorporate adequate civilian casualty monitoring mechanisms into all recent operations.

As Airwars’ ‘Europe’s Shame’ investigation highlights, the UK’s allies are often better able to understand and report on the harm that comes from British actions than the UK itself. This was reaffirmed by the recent publication of a Pentagon report to Congress in which they detailed civilian casualties known to have been caused by allies, including Britain.

Library picture: A RAF Typhoon lands in Cyprus hours after UK voted to extend airstrikes to Syria (UK MoD)

This is not to say that there has been no progress at the MoD since the findings of the Chilcot report. When it comes to responding to requests for information regarding specific alleged civilian harm events during the war against ISIS, the MoD has been quick and responsive – at least compared to allies. Yet a number of key changes are required within the Ministry of Defence to ensure that the UK consistently and effectively protects those on the ground when it goes to war, and is transparent when things do go wrong.

Improving the MoD approach

To improve the UK Defence Ministry’s approach to POC, the following key steps must be taken. Firstly, the UK must learn from its allies and independent organisations by establishing a permanent civilian harm tracking cell within the Ministry with strong local understanding and relevant language skills, while conducting site visits and witness interviews for assessments where possible.

The UK must also review the exceptionally high bar it sets for determining civilian harm. Senior British defence officials have confirmed to both the BBC and to Airwars that the UK presently requires what it calls ‘hard facts’ when assessing civilian harm claims – an apparently higher standard even than the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ used by UK courts. Civilian casualty assessors within the US military instead use a ‘balance of probabilities’ approach, Airwars understands – allowing them to consider local credible reports of civilian harm in their own investigations.

Transparency must then follow. Information about incidents that may have harmed civilians should be publicly disclosed, investigated and fed into internal lessons mechanisms to inform broader approaches to civilian harm mitigation. As outlined by Mike Spagat from Every Casualty Counts: “Transparency about operations can help build positive relations with the public, improve the quality of field data and, ultimately, improve military performance.”

By better understanding the negative impact of its military actions on the ground and communicating the findings in clear ways, the UK will become more accountable both to its own citizens and to those who live where the UK’s armed forces or close partners engage overseas. This would also place the UK in line with allies like the US, which have made a conscious effort to acknowledge at least some instances of civilian harm, as seen for example in Airwars’ investigation of “The Credibles”.

As a key step towards this, we urge the British government to follow many allies, primarily European, who are increasingly implementing presumptions against the use of explosive weapons in populated areas (EWIPA) in the planning and conduct of operations. As Rachel Hobley from Humanity and Inclusion emphasises: “When explosive weapons with wide area effects are used in populated areas, 90 percent of those killed or injured are civilians. This compares to just 25 percent in non-urban areas.

“These statistics, which have remained the same for the last 10 years, show the systematic humanitarian harm that arises from these practices. Not only are people killed and injured – families’ homes are also destroyed, health clinics decimated, and key services like water and electricity wiped out.”

The aftermath of a confirmed Coalition airstrike two years on. (via Amnesty)

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

The MoD is only one actor among many within the UK government which is responsible for protecting civilians on the ground. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is also vital, as it leads on the UK’s official Approach to the Protection of Civilians.

It is particularly concerning that commitments made in the UK’s 2020 Approach to the Protection of Civilians policy, to “investigate any credible reports that UK actions may have caused civilian harm”, have yet to lead to any tangible changes in the UK’s approach.

At the same time, there is a lack of guidance on how the UK will respond when harm does occur. This reflects a broader trend in which cornerstone policies for the UK’s engagements abroad too often fail adequately to address the importance of protecting civilians. For example, while the government’s recent Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, which was published earlier this year, is broad in its scope – covering everything from cyber warfare to terrorism – it fails to mention the protection of civilians once. This reveals a significant lack of prioritisation of POC, despite such protections being identified time and time again as a key to obtaining strategic goals in wars.

In collaboration with partner civil society organisations, Airwars has held positive discussions with Lord Ahmad, Minister of State for the Commonwealth, in attempts to better understand how the FCDO intends to improve its approach. At the same time, several statements from government officials, including Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, have promised to create a ‘conflict centre’. Yet, despite concerted efforts to gain more information, we are left with a long list of questions on what this will focus on; to what degree it will allow for engagement with civil society actors; and how much it will prioritise the protection of civilians.

Finally, in addition to changes that both the MoD and FCDO must implement to be accountable and protect civilians, we urge the Government to ensure that these departments also coordinate with each other as they are jointly responsible for delivering protections on the ground. As it stands, the two departments often do not even use the same terminology, with the MoD focusing on ‘Human Security’ and the FCDO pursuing ‘Protection of Civilians’. While the two agendas are implicitly connected, it remains unclear why the departments have chosen different approaches, and how they will work together to ensure delivery.

Making the UK’s approach to the protection of civilians more accountable and transparent is not going to be a quick or simple process. Yet it is a vital one; not only for the sake of the civilians who find themselves caught in conflict, but also to ensure that UK actions abroad contribute to stability.

▲ Ministry of Defence Main Building, Horse Guards Avenue.

LOCATION

طفس, Tafas, Daraa, Syria

A major bombardment of the town of Tafas in Daraa caused up to three civilian deaths and up to six more injuries, according to extensive local reporting. Both the Assad regime and to a lesser extend Russia were blamed for the attacks. Horan Free Media, citing its local correspondent, initially described the death of one

Summary

Civilian infrastructure

School

2 – 3

(1–2 women1 man)

5–6

Syrian Regime, Russian Military

3 named

الدردارة, Al Dardarah , Al Hassakah, Syria

LOCATION

At least two civilians, including a woman, were injured in alleged Turkish shelling of al-Dardarah village on August 23, 2021. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “a young man and a woman were injured due to Turkish bombardment on al-Dardarah village”. Nabd News provided the names of the civilians injured: Amena Al Faris

Summary

Turkish Military

2 named, 1 familiy identified

درعا البلد, Daraa Al Balad, Daraa, Syria

LOCATION

At least one civilian was killed and six other civilians were injured in alleged Russian or regime or Iranian strikes on Daraa Al Balad on August 23, 2021. A tweet from @Almohrar1 reported that the young man Yazn Al-Omari was killed in the strikes on Daraa Al Balad. @omar_alharir added that a number of civilians were

Summary

Iranian Military, Syrian Regime, Russian Military

LOCATION

تقاد, Taqad, Aleppo, Syria

At least one child was injured in alleged Russian or regime or Iranian shelling of Taqad on August 23, 2021. According to the Syrian Civil Defense, a child was injured during artillery shelling of the village of Taqad. All other sources that reported on civilian harm identified one child as being injured in the shelling

Summary

Syrian Regime, Russian Military, Iranian Military

كنصفرة, Kansafra, Idlib, Syria

LOCATION

At least four children from the same family were killed and their mother and two other men were injured in alleged Russian or regime or Iranian strikes on Kansafra on August 20, 2021. Syrian Civil Defense reported “four children from one family were killed, and two civilians were injured, this morning, Friday, August 20, by artillery

Summary

(4 children)

2–5

Russian Military, Syrian Regime, Iranian Military

4 named, 1 familiy identified

كفرنوران, Kafr Nouran, Aleppo, Syria

LOCATION

At least one child was killed and her sibling, another child, was injured in alleged Russian or regime strikes on a cemetery in Kafr Nouran on August 20, 2021. The Syrian Civil Defense reported that two children, Muhammad Subhi Darwish, 9, and his sister, Huda, 8, were injured in the town of Kafr Noran. Both

Summary

(1 child)

2 named, 1 familiy identified

قارة, Qarah, Rif Dimashq, Syria

LOCATION

At least four civilians, including a young man, were killed and three to four others were injured in alleged Israeli airstrikes or Syrian regime air defense strikes on Qarah on August 19/20, 2021. Sources reported that four additional members of Hezbollah were killed in the strikes. A tweet from @SARASALLOUM963 quoted the Head of Qara

Summary

3–4

Israeli Military, Syrian Regime

Suspected targets

Hezbollah, Iranian military

Belligerents reported killed

بلشون, Balshoun, Idlib, Syria

LOCATION

At least five civilians, including three children and their mother in addition to another child, were killed and two to four other civilians, including a child, were injured in alleged Russian or regime strikes on Balshoun on August 19, 2021. Syrian Civil Defense reported on “the killing of three children, their mother and another child,

Summary

(4 children1 woman)

2–4

5 named, 1 familiy identified

الكريدية, Al Karidiya, Aleppo, Syria

LOCATION

Between one and two civilians, including a girl and a woman, were killed and up to seven members of their family, including two women and a child, were injured in alleged Syrian Democratic Forces or regime strikes on Al Karidiya on August 18/19, 2021. The Syrian Civil Defense reported about “the killing of a woman,

Summary

(1 child1 woman)

5–7

Syrian Regime, Syrian Democratic Forces

عفرين, Afrin, Aleppo, Syria

Pentagon revelations increase pressure on European militaries to acknowledge killing civilians

Published

August 18, 2021

Written by

Joe Dyke

Web link

Focus will now turn to whether UK, France and Belgium will finally admit culpability

When the Department of Defense withdrew a key part of its annual report on civilian harm earlier this month, it all but confirmed something long suspected – that France, Britain and Belgium know they likely killed civilians in Iraq and Syria in specific events, but refuse publicly to accept it.

The original Pentagon report to Congress, released on May 28th, initially claimed responsibility for the deaths of 50 civilians in eleven airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria in 2017 and 2018.

After Airwars pointed out significant errors, the DoD withdrew and reissued the report along with an addendum, removing nine of the eleven incidents in which civilians died. This amounted to the Pentagon’s effective confirmation that those strikes were carried out by its allies, including the UK, France and Belgium.

Of these nine incidents, two were in fact the same event – seemingly a clerical error. Two more have been publicly claimed already by Australia, which has accepted responsibility for the deaths.

That leaves six events in which the Coalition’s own investigators concluded that 18 civilians had died.

What are the six strikes?

Three of them were British airstrikes. We knew this before due to in-depth reporting by Airwars and the BBC but the Pentagon’s withdrawal of the data all but confirms it.

In the most deadly individual case, on August 13th 2017, 12 civilians were killed, including a young girl, in an airstrike targeting an ISIS mortar system. A further six were injured. In February 2019 the US-led Coalition accepted that civilians were killed and the UK later confirmed it was a British strike – yet without accepting anyone died.

In a second case, the Coalition publicly confirmed the deaths of two civilians in a strike near the Iraqi city of Mosul on January 9th 2017. Again the UK confirmed it was a British strike but without accepting that civilians were killed. This contradicted a Coalition whistleblower, who earlier told the BBC that civilians had likely died in the British attack.

The third British incident occurred in Bahrah in eastern Syria on January 20th 2018. The Coalition’s military assessors admitted the death of one civilian. The BBC and Airwars published an investigation showing it was a British strike and the UK accepted this, but again refused to accept responsibility for any civilian harm.

The reason for the gap between the Coalition and British statements is that London applies a different – and critics would say unrealistic – standard for assessing civilian harm. Whereas the Coalition and the US assess whether they caused civilian harm on the ‘balance of probabilities’, the UK demands overwhelming evidence – described as ‘hard facts.’ In the context of an airstrike from thousands of feet and with no Coalition civilian casualty investigation forces on the ground, such overwhelming proof is near impossible to come by.

To date, the UK has accepted just one civilian death in Iraq and Syria, despite 8,000 declared flight sorties over seven years.

Gavin Crowden, Executive Director of Every Casualty Counts, said that when it came to civilian harm, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was pretending the “absence of evidence is evidence of absence.”

“The Pentagon has shattered the MoD’s already implausible claim that British forces have caused only one civilian death across Iraq and Syria. This is statistically almost impossible.”

“The [Chilcot] Report of the Iraq Inquiry made clear that the MoD had failed to account for civilian casualties following the invasion in 2003. Almost twenty years on, the MoD is still failing to take even basic steps to identify and record harm caused to civilians.”

French and Belgian strikes

The other three incidents the Pentagon insists were not US actions are believed to be either Belgian or French strikes.

On February 27th 2017 a Coalition strike on an ISIS vehicle near the Iraqi-Syrian border killed at least one civilian and injured another. Local sources said the death toll could have been as high as three. The Coalition accepted causing the harm, and a senior Belgian government official unofficially informed Airwars that the strike was Belgian, though the government has never publicly confirmed this.

On March 21st 2017 a civilian was killed in a Coalition strike in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Again a senior government official unofficially informed Airwars that the strike was Belgian, though the government has never publicly confirmed this.

The final incident, which took place on February 8th 2018, killed one civilian near Al-Bahrah village in Syria. Airwars identified it as a likely French strike, though Paris has always publicly refused to comment.

To date, neither France nor Belgium has publicly accepted killing any civilians in years of bombing Iraq and Syria.

Marc Garlasco, a military advisor for PAX and a former US senior Department of Defense intelligence analyst, said the Pentagon errors would increase pressure on European militaries to stop hiding behind the anonymity of the Coalition.

In 2015 a devastating strike in the town of Hawijah in Iraq led to the deaths of more than 70 civilians. The Coalition eventually accepted responsibility, but no member state did. It was only in 2019, after investigative reporting, that the Dutch government finally admitted responsibility.

“It is time for European MoDs to stop hiding behind American statistics and take responsibility for the harm they cause and provide appropriate amends,” Garlasco said.

“One central issue for civilians is the problem coalition warfare causes for strike attribution, and therefore amends. Too often we have seen war victims unable to make claims or even get answers for why they were targeted because they just don’t know who dropped the bombs. It is unreasonable to put the onus of proof on the victim.”

He pointed out that in the wake of the Hawijah massacre the Dutch Ministry of Defence has opened a review of its civilian harm mitigation policies, working alongside organisations like PAX and Airwars.

“We see a real opportunity in the wake of the lessons we have learned by working with the Dutch MoD. There are now positive examples to follow if Belgium, France, the UK, and any other military intends to take civilian harm seriously.”

Every Casualty Count’s Gavin Crowden said the US civilian casualty monitoring process, though far from perfect, was a clear example for other countries to follow. So far the US has admitted killing more than 1,300 civilians in the war against ISIS.

“If European militaries claim they can fire smart missiles straight into the bedroom of a specific target, they should surely be able to compile basic data about where and when they have conducted operations that may have harmed civilians.”

“The US has shown that this is both logistically, militarily and politically possible. Therefore, we have to conclude that the obstacle among European militaries is simply a lack of will.”

Airwars asked the British, French and Belgian militaries for comment on the Pentagon’s report. None said they intended to review their earlier assessments of no civilian harm, in light of the DoD revelations.

▲ File footage: A U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refuels a British Tornado fighter over Iraq, Dec. 22, 2015. Coalition forces fly daily missions in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Corey Hook/Released)

LOCATION

At least three civilians, including one to two women and a child, were killed and three to four others were injured in alleged Syrian Democratic Forces or Russian or regime strikes on Afrin on August 18, 2021. The Syrian Network for Human Rights reported that “three civilians, including a child and a woman, were killed

Summary

(1 child1–2 women1 man)

3–4

Russian Military, Syrian Democratic Forces, Syrian Regime

ابو راسين, Abu Rasin, Al Hassakah, Syria

LOCATION

Between one and two civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed and between 10 and 20 others, including two women and two children, were injured in alleged Turkish airstrikes on Zirgan on August 17, 2021. According to North Press Agency (NPA), at least one civilian was killed and between 10 and 20 others

Summary

(1 child1 woman)

10–20

بلشون, Balshoun, Idlib, Syria

LOCATION

A least one man was killed and one to two other civilians were killed in alleged Russian or regime strikes on the town of Balshoun on August 16, 2021. Sources are contested as to whether the man killed was a civilian or a belligerent. The correspondent for @HalabTodayTV reported that a civilian was killed in

Summary

0 – 1

(0–1 men)

Suspected target

Al Qaeda/HTS

1 named, 1 familiy identified

Belligerents reported killed

0–1

كفرتعال, Kafr Taal, Aleppo, Syria

LOCATION

Up to two civilians, including a woman and a child, were injured in alleged Russian or regime or Iranian strikes on Kafr Taal village on August 14, 2021. According to the Syrian Civil Defense, “a two-year-old child was injured by missile strikes by the regime and Russia forces, this morning, Saturday, August 14, targeting civilian homes

Summary

Syrian Regime, Russian Military, Iranian Military

كفر نوران, Kafr Nouran, Idlib, Syria

LOCATION

At least one civilian was injured in alleged Russian or regime artillery and machine gun fire on the village of Kafr Nouran on August 11, 2021. @spc_fr reported that “a civilian was injured as the #regime forces bombed the village of #Kafr Noran in the western countryside of #Aleppo with heavy machine guns”. Other sources reported

Summary

Artillery, Ground operation

Syrian Regime, Russian Military

برزة, Barze, Idlib, Syria

LOCATION

At least one civilian was killed in alleged Russian or regime strikes on Barze on August 11, 2021. According to the Syrian Civil Defense (SCD), “a civilian was killed while he was collecting firewood, in artillery shelling by the Assad regime forces targeting the surrounding mountains of Barzeh”. The correspondent for Zaman Al Wasl reported that

Summary

معرزاف, Maarzaf, Idlib, Syria

الجيش الإسرائيلي في سوريا والأراضي الفلسطينية

LOCATION

One civilian was killed in regime and/or Russian shelling in the village of Maarzaf on August 10, 2021, multiple sources reported. Four sources also reported injuries from the incident, but none gave any estimate of how many. Little information was given on the identity of the person killed. SY-24 reported the victim was a man.

Summary

Suspected target

تديل, Tadel, Aleppo, Syria

Pentagon wrongly admitted killing 21 civilians in Iraq and Syria slain by allies

Published

August 10, 2021

Written by

Joe Dyke

Web link

published in partnership with

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Allied nations almost certainly killed them. So why did the Defense Department tell Congress that the US was responsible?

This article was originally published by The Intercept on August 5th 2021.

The Defense Department has been forced to withdraw a key part of an official report to Congress, after wrongly claiming responsibility for killing 21 civilians in Iraq and Syria who were actually slain by close US allies.

The Pentagon was alerted to the mistake in June by Airwars, which had previously documented most of the strikes as being carried out by other partner nations in the US-led Coalition against the Islamic State, including the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.

After reviewing the findings, the Defense Department finally admitted the error on August 5th.

“This was an oversight in preparing data for the report,” Pentagon spokesperson Mike Howard said, without giving further details on how the error had occurred. “We regret the mistake.”

The revelations will add to growing concern over the Pentagon’s civilian harm policies, after senior Democrats recently accused the Pentagon of underestimating the number of civilians killed in its latest annual report to Congress and criticized the US military’s failure to pay out a single dollar in compensation to victims’ families during 2020.

“You have to wonder what is going on at the Defense Department and [U.S. Central Command] that they can’t even get right this basic obligation to report civilian harm to Congress and to the public accurately and reliably,” Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Intercept. “This only compounds our concerns about underlying issues such as investigations into civilian harm, in which DOD does not even talk to surviving family members for information.”

“Only US casualties”

The Department of Defense’s latest annual report documenting civilians killed and injured by US actions globally was released on May 28th. The report, in which the Defense Department must inform Congress of all officially recognized civilian harm caused by the US military, has been a legal requirement since 2018.

In the latest report, the Pentagon admitted to killing 23 civilians worldwide during 2020, though monitors such as the United Nations in Afghanistan have shown the real figure is likely many times higher.

The report also incorrectly acknowledged responsibility for 50 historical civilian deaths in 11 airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between January 2017 and February 2018. The Pentagon at first said the incidents had “inadvertently” not been included in reports in previous years, but most were in fact carried out by allied nations.

While the campaign against ISIS was fought by a coalition of mostly Western nations, the report explicitly stated that it “only lists civilian casualties attributed to the use of U.S.-operated weapons,” meaning no strikes conducted by allied aircraft should have been included.

The Intercept and Airwars cross-checked these incidents against public records and found that of the 11, nine were not carried out by the US at all.

The May Defense Department report to Congress claimed responsibility for the deaths of 50 additional civilians in Iraq and Syria in 2017-2018, of whom only 28 were actually killed by US strikes. Source: US Department of Defense, May 2021.

Most of those incidents had been highlighted in a major investigation last year by Airwars, the BBC, Libération, De Morgen and RTL Netherlands, which concluded that European countries were systematically failing to accept causing civilian harm, even when U.S. military assessors declared otherwise.

The addendum released by the Defense Department on August 5th removed nine of the 11 incidents in which the US acknowledged killing civilians in its earlier report.

Two of the incidents for which the Pentagon claimed as US actions had, for example, already been admitted by the Australian Defence Force, which had taken full responsibility for killing the civilians.

In one of those airstrikes, two civilians were killed and two hurt in Mosul, Iraq, on May 3rd 2017. That event was publicly conceded by the ADF more than three years ago, with an official statement at the time saying: “On 3 May 2017, one Australian aircraft conducted an airstrike in support of Iraqi Security Forces who were under direct fire from enemy fighters in West Mosul. … Based on a review of information now available, it is possible that civilian casualties may have occurred as a result of this strike.”

The UK had explicitly claimed responsibility for carrying out between three and four further strikes on the list, and a senior Belgian official had unofficially acknowledged that country’s responsibility for two other attacks.

Among the British incidents was the killing of 12 civilians in the Syrian city of Raqqa on August 13th 2017. The Coalition officially confirmed it had killed the civilians while targeting an ISIS mortar system; the UK later admitted to carrying out the strike, saying Royal Air Force fighter jets targeted “a mortar team in a building at the location given” during clashes between ISIS and Western-backed Kurdish forces.

Among the victims locally named that day were Walid Awad Al Qus and his young daughter Limar.

A ninth event, which killed one civilian in Al Bahrah in Syria in February 2018, was found by Airwars and Libération to have likely been attributable to the French military. Despite the findings, neither the UK, Belgium, nor France has publicly admitted to killing civilians in any of these strikes.

Airwars highlighted the errors to the US Defense Department in early June; the Pentagon then took two months to send an official correction to the report to Congress. That addendum offered no detailed explanation for the mistake.

“The text and table in the report provided in May 2021 … should be omitted and replaced because only two of the eleven incidents on the original table were ‘attributed to the use of U.S.-operated weapons,’” the text of the addendum states.

CENTCOM under scrutiny

The US arguably has the world’s most advanced mechanisms for monitoring the civilian harm caused by its own military actions across the globe.

During the seven-year campaign against ISIS, the US military has admitted killing more than 1,300 civilians. While monitors like Airwars put the real figure far higher, other militaries barely accept any responsibility for civilian harm: France has not admitted to killing a single civilian, and the UK has acknowledged responsibility for just one civilian death since 2014.

The great majority of deaths from US military actions occur within US Central Command’s area of responsibility, which includes Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. In recent years, CENTCOM has faced rising concerns about poor management of its civilian harm monitoring and reporting processes.

CENTCOM declined to comment on whether the error in the recent report to Congress had originated with its own personnel, referring questions back to the Department of Defense.

More forgetfulness on Yemen

While publicly claiming responsibility for the deaths of civilians it didn’t in fact harm, CENTCOM has also once again forgotten some of those it did.

In November 2020, following a major Airwars study of US military actions in Yemen under President Donald Trump, CENTCOM officially admitted injuring two civilians during an airstrike in September 2017.

This was only the second time the US had ever publicly admitted specific civilian harm as a result of its airstrikes and raids in Yemen, which date back to 2002.

But that confirmed event was not included in the most recent report to Congress, and no explanation has been given for its omission.

This marked the second time in the past year that CENTCOM has apparently forgotten recent civilian harm it caused in Yemen. In November, it blamed an “administrative mistake” after saying only that it “may” have killed civilians during a botched raid in Yemen in January 2017. At the time, CENTCOM’s own commander, Gen. Joseph Votel, had told the US Senate he took personal responsibility for the deaths of “between four and 12” civilians in that attack.

Bonyan Gamal from the Yemeni human rights organization Mwatana said such errors are “painful for the families” of those injured or killed.

The recent Pentagon civilian harm report did however confirm one new case in Yemen after an investigation by Mwatana: The US admitted that it had targeted and killed an elderly Yemeni man in a 2019 airstrike. To date, no compensation has been paid or offered, and Gamal said the families of victims want justice.

“When we received the confirmation of civilian harm we contacted the family,” Gamal said. “When I spoke to them they asked ‘OK and now what?’ If there are no steps after an acknowledgment and not even an apology then what is the use for this?”

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LOCATION

Up to two children were killed in regime and/or Russian shelling in the village of Tadel in the countryside of Aleppo on August 10th, 2021, according to multiple sources. The majority of sources reported the death of one child and the injury of two of her siblings. The child who died was named by four

Summary

(1–2 children)

Russian Military, Syrian Regime, Iranian Military

3 named, 1 familiy identified