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Why White House civilian casualty figures on civilian are a wild underestimate

Published

July 1, 2016

Written by

Chris Woods

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Chris Woods set up the Bureau’s award-winning Drones Project in 2011, and is the author of Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars. He now runs Airwars, which monitors international airstrikes and civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria.

Targeted killings or assassinations beyond the battlefield remain a highly charged subject. Most controversial of all is the number of civilians killed in US covert and clandestine drone strikes since 2002.

The new White House data relates only to Obama’s first seven years in office – during which it says 473 covert and clandestine airstrikes and drone attacks were carried out in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya.

The US claims that between 64 and 116 civilians died in these actions – around one non-combatant killed for every seven or so strikes. That official estimate suggests civilians are significantly more likely to die in a JSOC or CIA drone attack than in conventional US airstrikes. United Nations data for Afghanistan indicates that one civilian was killed for every 11 international airstrikes in 2014, for example.

But for Obama’s secret wars, the public record suggests a far worse reality. According to Bureau monitoring, between 2009 and 2015 an estimated 256 civilians have died in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. A further 124 civilians are likely to have been slain in Yemen, with less than 10 non-combatants estimated killed in Somalia strikes. Similar tallies are reported by the New America Foundation and the Long War Journal.

So why have civilians been at greater risk from these covert and clandestine US airstrikes? Part of the answer lies in who the US kills. Many of those pursued are high value targets – senior or middle ranking terrorist or militant group commanders. Bluntly put, the higher the value of the target – and the greater the threat they represent to you – the more the laws of war allow you to put civilians in harm’s way.

The CIA also frequently missed those same high-value targets. A 2014 study by legal charity Reprieve suggested that US drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan had killed as many as 1,147 unknown people in failed attempts to kill 41 named targets.

It’s also clear the CIA has been using a very different rule book. In an effort to lower civilian deaths in Afghanistan, international airstrikes on buildings and urban locations were mostly banned from 2008. Yet in Pakistan, more than 60% of CIA strikes have targeted domestic buildings (or “militant compounds”) according to Bureau research.

When President Obama apologised for the accidental 2015 killing of US aid worker Warren Weinstein, he revealed that the US had kept the target building under surveillance for “hundreds of hours” – yet had never known there were civilians inside. Many of the women and children credibly reported killed by the CIA in Pakistan have died in similar circumstances – though few of their deaths have ever been conceded.

Then there have been the more shocking tactics employed by the CIA. There was the deliberate targeting of funerals and rescuers, again first revealed by the Bureau. And the widespread use of so-called signature strikes during the Obama years – the targeting of suspects based not on their known identities, but on their behavioural patterns.

In the most notorious such incident, at least 35 civilians died when the CIA targeted a tribal meeting in 2011 – an action which significantly damaged US-Pakistani relations. None of those deaths appear have been included in the White House’s casualty estimates. Missing too are the 41 civilians – including 22 children – slain in a JSOC cruise missile strike on Yemen in 2009. These two events alone indicate more civilian deaths than all of those now admitted across seven years.

The CIA has long played down the number of civilians killed in its drone strikes. It was the Bureau which first challenged John Brennan after he claimed there had been no civilian deaths from CIA strikes for 15 months. The public record showed otherwise. Even leaked CIA documents demonstrated Brennan’s economy with the truth.

US Special Forces have also long hidden the true effect of their actions. Leaked cables obtained by Wikileaks revealed that under Obama, Centcom conspired with Yemen’s then-president to cover up US involvement in the deaths of civilians. And four years later, JSOC’s bombing of a Yemen wedding convoy led (anonymous) CIA officials to criticise the elite unit – even as the Pentagon publicly denied any civilian deaths.

Today’s official White House estimates should be read in the context of these continued evasions and untruths. Though welcome as a general step towards improved transparency – and with new rules which may reduce the risk to civilians – they do little to reconcile the continuing gulf between public estimates and official claims.

Image via USAF

Obama drone casualty numbers a fraction of those recorded by the Bureau

Published

July 1, 2016

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The US government today claimed it has killed between 64 and 116 “non-combatants” in 473 counter-terrorism strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya between January 2009 and the end of 2015.

This is a fraction of the 380 to 801 civilian casualty range recorded by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism from reports by local and international journalists, NGO investigators, leaked government documents, court papers and the result of field investigations.

While the number of civilian casualties recorded by the Bureau is six times higher than the US Government’s figure, the assessments of the minimum total number of people killed were strikingly similar. The White House put this figure at 2,436, whilst the Bureau has recorded 2,753.

Since becoming president in 2009, Barack Obama has significantly extended the use of drones in the War on Terror. Operating outside declared battlefields, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, this air war has been largely fought in Pakistan and Yemen.

The White House’s announcement today is long-awaited. It comes three years after the White House first said it planned to publish casualty figures, and four months after President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser, Lisa Monaco, said the data would be released.

The figures released do not include civilians killed in drones strikes that happened under George W Bush, who instigated the use of counter-terrorism strikes outside declared war zones and in 58 strikes killed 174 reported civilians.

Graphic by Dean Vipond

Today’s announcement is intended to shed light on the US’s controversial targeted killing programme, in which it has used drones to run an arms-length war against al Qaeda and Islamic State.

The US Government also committed to continued transparency saying it will provide an annual summary of information about the number of strikes against terrorist targets outside areas of active hostilities as well as the range of combatants and non-combatants killed.

But the US has not released a year-by-year breakdown of strikes nor provided any detail on particularly controversial strikes which immediately sparked criticism from civil liberty groups.

Jamel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union said: “While any disclosure of information about the government’s targeted-killing policies is welcome, the government should be releasing information about every strike—the date of the strike, the location, the numbers of casualties, and the civilian or combatant status of those casualties. Perhaps this kind of information should be released after a short delay, rather than immediately, but it should be released. The public has a right to know who the government is killing—and if the government doesn’t know who it’s killing, the public should know that.”

The gap between US figures and other estimates, including the Bureau’s data, also raised concerns.

Jennifer Gibson, staff attorney at Reprieve said: “For three years now, President Obama has been promising to shed light on the CIA’s covert drone programme. Today, he had a golden opportunity to do just that. Instead, he chose to do the opposite. He published numbers that are hundreds lower than even the lowest estimates by independent organisations. The only thing those numbers tell us is that this Administration simply doesn’t know who it has killed. Back in 2011, it claimed to have killed “only 60” civilians. Does it really expect us to believe that it has killed only 4 more civilians since then, despite taking hundreds more strikes?

“The most glaring absence from this announcement are the names and faces of those civilians that have been killed. Today’s announcement tells us nothing about 14 year old Faheem Qureshi, who was severely injured in Obama’s first drone strike. Reports suggest Obama knew he had killed civilians that day.”

The US government said in a statement: “First, although there are inherent limitations on determining the precise number of combatant and non-combatant deaths, particularly when operating in non-permissive environments, the US Government uses post-strike methodologies that have been refined and honed over years and that use information that is generally unavailable to non-government organsations.”

Bibi Mamana

Bibi Mamana was a grandmother and midwife living in the the tribal region of North Waziristan on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

On October 24 2012, she was preparing for the Muslim festival of Eid. She used to say that the joy of Eid was the excitement it brought to children. Her eight-year-old granddaughter Nabeela was reported to be in a field with her as she gathered vegetables when a drone killed Mamana.

“I saw the first two missiles coming through the air,” Nabeela later told The Times. “They were following each other with fire at the back. When they hit the ground, there was a loud noise. After that I don’t remember anything.” Nabeela was injured by flying shrapnel.

At the sound of the explosion, Mamana’s 18-year-old grandson Kaleem ran from the house to help. But a few minutes later the drones struck again, he told the BBC. He was knocked unconscious. His leg was badly broken and damaged by shrapnel, and needed surgery.

Atiq, one of Mamana’s sons, was in the mosque as Manama gathered vegetables. On hearing the blast and seeing the plume of smoke he rushed to the scene. When he arrived he could not see any sign of his mother.

Picture credit: BBC

“I started calling out for her but there was no reply,” Atiq told the Times. “Then I saw her shoes. We found her mutilated body a short time afterwards. It had been thrown quite a long distance away by the blast and it was in pieces. We collected many different parts from the field and put a turban over her body.”

Atiq’s brother Rafiq told Al Jazeera English he received a letter after the strike from a Pakistani official that said the attack was a US drone strike and that Mamana was innocent. But nothing more came of it, he said. The following year Rafiq, a teacher, travelled to the US to speak to Congress about the strike.

“My job is to educate,” he said in an emotional testimony. “But how do I teach something like this? How do I explain what I myself do not understand?”

Evaluating the numbers

The administration has called its drone programme a precise, effective form of warfare that targets terrorists and rarely hits civilians.

With the release of the figures today President Obama said, “All armed conflict invites tragedy. But by narrowly targeting our action against those who want to kill us and not the people they hide among, we are choosing the course of action least likely to result in the loss of innocent life.”

In June 2011 Obama’s then counter terrorism chief, now CIA director, John Brennan made a similar statement. He also declared drone strikes were “exceptionally precise and surgical” and had not killed a single civilian since August 2010. A Bureau investigation in July 2011 demonstrated this claim was untrue.

Most of the Bureau’s data sources are media reports by local and international news outlets, including Reuters, Associated Press and The New York Times.

The US Government says it has a much clearer view of post-strike situations than such reporting, suggesting this is the reason why there is such a gap between the numbers that have been recorded by the Bureau, and similar organisations, and those released today.

But the Bureau has also gathered essential information from its own field investigations.

The tribal areas have long been considered a difficult if not impossible area for journalists to access. However, occasionally reporters have been able to gain access to the site of the strikes to interview survivors, witnesses and relatives of people killed in drone strikes.

The Bureau conducted a field investigation through the end of 2011 into 2012, in partnership with The Sunday Times. Through extensive interviews with local villagers, the Bureau found 12 strikes killed 57 civilians.

The Associated Press also sent reporters into the Fata, reporting its findings in February 2012. It found 56 civilians and 138 militants were killed in 10 strikes.

Access to affected areas is a challenge in Yemen too. But in December 2009 a deputation of Yemeni parliamentarians sent to the scene of a strike discovered the burnt remnants of a camp, which had been set up by several families from one of Yemen’s poorest tribes.

A subsequent investigation by journalist Jeremy Scahill revealed a deception that hid US responsibility for the deaths of 41 civilians at the camp – half of them children, five of them pregnant women.

The reality on the ground flew in the face of the US governments understanding of events. A leaked US diplomatic record of a meeting in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, between General David Petraeus and the Yemeni president revealed the US government was ignorant of the civilian death toll.

Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber

Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber, a 40-year-old father of seven, was exactly the kind of man the US needed in Yemen. A widely respected cleric in rural Yemen, he delivered sermons in his village mosque denouncing al-Qaida.

Picture credit: Private

He gave just such a speech in August 2012 and earned the attention of the terrorist group. Three anonymous fighters arrived in his village two days later, after dark, calling for Jaber to come out and talk.

He went to meet them, taking his policeman cousin, Walid Abdullah bin Ali Jaber, with him for protection. The five men stood arguing in the night air when Hellfire missiles tore into them.

A “huge explosion” rocked the village, a witness said. Jaber’s father, Ahmad bin Salim Salih bin Ali Jaber, 77, arrived on the scene to find people “wrapping up body parts of people from the ground, from here and there, putting them in grave clothes like lamb.”

All the dead were al Qaeda fighters, unnamed Yemeni officials claimed. However Jaber’s family refused to allow him to be smeared as a terrorist.

For three years they fought in courts in America and Germany for recognition that he was an innocent civilian. In November 2013 they visited Washington and even managed to arrange a meeting in the White House to plead their case. In 2014 the family said it was offered a bag containing $100,000 by a Yemen national security official. The official said it was a US strike and it had been a mistake.

By late 2015 the family offered to drop their lawsuits against the US government if the administration would apologise. The Department of Justice refused. In February 2016 the court dismissed the family’s suit but they have not stopped fighting: in April they announced they would appeal.

Falling numbers of civilian casualties

The White House stressed that it was concerned to protect civilians and that best practices were in place to help reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties.

The Bureau’s data does show a significant decline in the reports of civilian casualties in recent years.

In Pakistan, where the largest number of strikes have occurred, there have been only three reported civilian casualties since the end of 2012. Two of these casualties – Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto – were Western hostages held by al Qaeda. The US, unaware they were targeting the American and Italian’s captors, flattened the house they were being held in.

The accidental killing of a US citizen spurred Obama to apologise for the strike – the first and only time he had publicly discussed a specific CIA drone strike in Pakistan. With the apology came an offer of a “condolence payment to both the families,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price told the Bureau. However, they have yet to receive any compensation from the US government for their loss.

Families who have lost relatives in Pakistan have not reported been compensated for their loss. In Yemen, money has been given to families for their loss but it is not clear whether it actually comes from the US. The money is disbursed by Yemeni government intermediaries, nominally from the Yemeni government.

Tariq Khan

Tariq Khan was a 16-year-old from North Waziristan who attended a high-profile anti-drone rally in Islamabad in October 2011. Only days later, he and his cousin were killed in a drone strike.

Tariq was the youngest of seven children. He was described by relatives as a quiet teenager who was good with computers. His uncle Noor Kalam said: “He was just a normal boy who loved football.”

On 27 October, Tariq made the eight-hour drive to Islamabad for a meeting convened by Waziri elders to discuss how to end civilian deaths in drone strikes. The Pakistani politician Imran Khan, his former wife Jemima, members of the legal campaign group Reprieve and several western journalists also attended the meeting.

Neil Williams from Reprieve said Tariq seemed very introverted at the meeting. He asked the boy if he had ever seen a drone. Tariq replied he saw 10 or 15 every day. He said they prevented him from sleeping. “He looked absolutely terrified,” Williams said.

After a four-hour debate, the audience joined around 2,000 people at a protest rally outside the Pakistani parliament. After the rally, the tribesmen made the long journey home. The day after he got back, Tariq and his cousin Wahid went to pick up his newly married aunt, according a Bureau reporter who met Tariq at the Islamabad meeting. When they were 200 yards from the house two missiles slammed into their car. The blast killed Tariq and Wahid instantly.

Some reports suggested Wahid was 12 years old.

An anonymous US official acknowledged the CIA had launched the strike but denied they were children. The occupants of that car were militants, he said.

Unnamed

Most of the dead from CIA strikes in Pakistan are unnamed Pakistanis and Afghans, according to Naming the Dead – a research project by the Bureau. Over three years the Bureau has painstakingly gathered names of the dead from US drone strikes in Pakistan. The project has recorded just 732 names of people killed since 2004. The project has named 213 civilians killed under Obama.

The fact that so many people are unnamed adds to the confusion about who has been killed.

A controversial US tactic, signature strikes, demonstrates how identities of the dead, and their status as a combatant or non-combatant, eludes the US. These strikes target people based on so-called pattern of life analysis, built from surveillance and intelligence but not the actual identity of a person.

And the CIA’s own records leaked to the news agency McClatchy show the US is sometimes not only ignorant of the identities of people it has killed, but also of the armed groups they belong to. They are merely listed as “other militants” and “foreign fighters” in the leaked records.

Former Deputy US Secretary of State, Richard Armitage outlined his unease with such internal reporting in an interview with Chris Woods for his book Sudden Justice. “Mr Obama was popping up with these drones left, right and down the middle, and I would read these accounts, ’12 insurgents killed.’ ’15!’ You don’t know that. You don’t know that. They could be insurgents, they could be cooks.”

Image of funeral of Akram Shah and at least four other civilians in June 2011 via AFP/Getty Images

Two families likely among 20 new civilian deaths admitted by US in war against ISIL

Published

April 22, 2016

Written by

Airwars Staff

Web link

In a doubling of previous estimates of civilians killed in its air war against so-called Islamic State, the US has confirmed that 20 more non-combatants are believed to have died and 11 injured in nine separate events between September 2015 and February 2016.

Among those likely killed were two Iraqi families. On October 5th, US aircraft targeted an ‘ISIL mortar position’ in the village of Atshanah near Huwaijah. CENTCOM now admits that “eight civilians were killed.”

According to an earlier United Nations report, all of the dead came from one family, that of a village elder: “On 5 October, an airstrike mistakenly targeted a civilian house in Atshana village, east of Hawija and southwest of Kirkuk, that belonged to the Mukhtar of the village, killing eight persons from the same family, including several women and children and the Mukhtar himself.”

And on December 12th 2015 in Ramadi, five members of the Kazem family including three children died when US aircraft struck an ‘ISIL checkpoint.’ CENTCOM now says that “five civilians were killed after they unexpectedly moved into the target location after weapons were already in flight.”

Local media have named the dead as Duraid Ibrahim Kazem, his wife Nebras Abdul Alkarim, and three of their children: Mustafa, Mohammed and Farah. Graphic images of their bodies were posted at the time.

New admissions

Nine new civilian casualty events have been reported in total – bringing to 25 the number of cases so far admitted. A total of 41 civilian deaths and 28 injuries have now been conceded by the US.

That compares with 406 alleged Coalition civilian casualty events tracked by Airwars since strikes began in August 2014. Of these, Airwars presently assesses a further 167 events as having been fairly reported, with a likely additional civilian toll of 1,064 to 1,638 civilians killed.

All of the newly-admitted events were carried out by US aircraft, most the result of civilians entering the ‘kill box’ after weapon release. No other Coalition ally – or Russia – has so far conceded killing or injuring any civilians, despite thousands of airstrikes between them.

“While we appreciate the latest US admission of civilian casualties from its 20-month war against so-called Islamic State, we remain concerned that the Coalition is significantly under-reporting non-combatant deaths,” said Airwars director Chris Woods. “Only 41 of 1,100 or more likely civilian deaths have so far been conceded – and all by the United States. Other allies in the Coalition – as well as Russia – now need to be open about the casualties they too have inflicted.”

Six of the newly admitted events took place in Iraq and three in Syria. Only a third of the incidents were publicly reported at the time, suggesting both that internal CENTCOM monitoring is capable of detecting likely civilian casualties – but also that public accounts of civilian deaths may represent a significant underreporting.

The US has also confirmed the first civilian death in Mosul – a city which has seen more Coalition airstrikes and alleged civilian fatalities than anywhere else in Iraq or Syria. On January 11th CENTCOM now admits, at least one civilian died and five or more were injured during a US air raid on a bank in the city. At the time the US let it be known it had been prepared to inflict up to 50 civilian casualties in the attack.

Latest confirmed civilian casualties from US strikes

Sept 10th 2015	Kubaysah, Iraq	2 killed and 4 injured when vehicle enters killbox
Oct 5th 2015	Atshanah, Iraq	Family of 8 or 9 killed when house struck
Nov 4th 2015	Huwaijah, Iraq	2 nearby civilians injured when ‘ISIL vehicle’ hit
Nov 12th 2015	Ramadi, Iraq	1 civilian killed in strike on ‘ISIL fighters’
Dec 10th 2015	Raqqa, Syria	1 civilian killed in targeted strike on HVT
Dec 12th 2015	Ramadi, Iraq	Family of 5 includng 3 children killed
Dec 24th 2015	Tishreen, Syria	1 civilian killed when motorbike enters killbox
Jan 11th 2016	Mosul, Iraq	1 civilian killed and 5 injured in strike on ‘ISIL bank’
Feb 2nd 2016	Al Ghazili, Syria	1 civilian killed in strike on ‘ISIL vehicle’

▲ Family of five killed in a reported Coalition strike December 10 (via Ramadi News)

More than 1,000 civilians estimated killed in 18-month Coalition air war

Published

March 9, 2016

Written by

Chris Woods

Web link

Additional research by Kinda Haddad, Latif Habib, Alex Hopkins and Basile Simon

Latest assessments suggest more than 1,000 civilians may now have died in 18 months of Coalition airstrikes across Iraq and Syria. The estimate is fifty times greater than the number of civilian deaths so far admitted by the US-led alliance.

Airwars researchers have so far identified 352 reported civilian casualty events, in which Coalition aircraft allegedly killed between 2,232 and 2,961 non-combatants in the war against so-called Islamic State.

Based on credible public reports and confirmed Coalition strikes in the vicinity, some 166 of these incidents are currently assessed as having likely led to civilian deaths – with a reported range of 1,004 to 1,419 killed.

The US has so far confirmed just sixteen of these events, which according to the Pentagon likely killed 21 civilians (Airwars places the toll slightly higher at 34 fatalities.)

None of the US’s eleven allies has admitted causing any civilian deaths, despite more than 10,800 Coalition airstrikes and 39,715 bombs and missiles dropped. Officials claim more than 25,000 enemy fighters have been slain.

Syria: Losing the war of ideas The first alleged civilian deaths from Coalition strikes were reported on August 16th 2014 – just one week into the 18-month air campaign. Since then, an average of four events a week have been claimed across Iraq and Syria – though few are reported by international media.

Recent weeks have seen a worrying rise in reported fatalities, which may be linked to less restrictive rules of engagement.

There were 22 alleged Coalition civilian casualty events in February 2016 for example, which between them are claimed to have killed at least 144 civilians. Nine of those incidents were clustered around the city of al Shadadi in Syria, recently captured by Kurdish forces with direct air support from the Coalition. A CENTCOM spokesman told Airwars only two of these reported incidents are under investigation.

In total, between 504 and 697 civilians are lkely to have been killed in Coalition strikes across Syria since September 23rd 2014. While Russia is likely to have killed four times that number in just five months, neither campaign has admitted to killing a single civilian in the country since Moscow began its own air war.

Kinda Haddad leads the Airwars team assessing Russian and Coalition airstrikes in Syria. She says she is troubled by the widening gulf between credible field reports of civilian deaths, and public military estimates:

Much like the war in Syria, the war against ISIS will not be won on the battlefields. It is a generational war of ideas, and as long as we give Middle Eastern lives less value than our own, we will keep on feeding the hatred and suspicion that nihilistic groups like ISIS capitalise on to recruit the young and vulnerable in all our societies.

Iraq: ‘I feel like a helpless witness’ Iraqis also report a significant number of civilian deaths from international airstrikes – though most Coalition partners deny any responsibility.

The UK, Denmark, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and Jordan all insist they have killed no civilians – despite more than 2,300 airstrikes in Iraq between them. And the Pentagon admits to killing just eight civilians in Iraq, from 4,917 declared US airstrikes in the country since August 2014.

Estimated strikes by non-US partners in Iraq, Sept 2014-March 2016

Once again the public record suggests a different reality, with at least 500 civilians credibly reported killed in 69 separate events in which Coalition strikes are confirmed nearby.

In the latest alleged incidents, 21 civilian victims have been named by local sources (including 13 children) after a March 5th Coalition strike on a Daesh weapons facility in Mosul. The extended family was said to be living in outbuildings in the derelict factory complex when it was targeted.

Two days later – again in Mosul – a family of six was reported killed in an alleged Coalition strike, with a source complaining to Yaqen News that “indiscriminate bombardment by Coalition aircraft operations has increased dramatically recently, and led to the deaths of many civilians.”

https://twitter.com/airwars_/status/707173793907777536/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Latif Habib helps Airwars assess claims of civilian deaths in Iraq from international airstrikes. “I feel I’m a helpless witness to 1,000 innocent victims killed by Coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria during the last 18 months,” he said this week from Baghdad.

▲ An image shows burning supply trucks following a Feb 26 strike which also killed five civilians (via NRN News)

Unprecedented death toll from US air strike in Somalia

Published

March 7, 2016

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The US flattened an al Shabaab training camp in central Somalia and killed around 150 people, the Pentagon said today, making it the highest death toll in a US counter-terrorism strike yet recorded anywhere by the Bureau.

The strike hit approximately 100 miles north of Mogadishu and killed al Shabaab terrorists who posed an imminent threat to the US and African Union peacekeepers, the Pentagon said.

US forces had had the camp under observation for several weeks and believed there were as many as 200 al Shabaab operatives based there.

The US struck after it appeared the terrorists were about to start their operation, Captain Jeff Davis said at the Pentagon.

Somalia’s Foreign Minister Abdusalam Omer told Reuters the Somalia intelligence agencies had been involved in the formative stages of the attack. “There has to be intelligence on the ground for this to happen. Our intelligence had helped,” Omer said.

Reported US drone strikes, Somalia 2001-2016
Strikes:	19-23
Total killed:	188-276
Civilians killed:	0-7
Children killed:	0-2
Injured:	2-8

Download our complete Somalia data here

“Manned and unmanned aircraft” were used to carry out the strike, which hit on Saturday March 5. The last US strike in Somalia was December 22 last year. That was the last of 10 attacks to hit the country in that year – an unprecedented frequency of strikes.

The US military said it was continuing to “assess the results of the operation” but “initial assessments are that 150 fighters were eliminated”.

Drones have been striking terrorists in Yemen since 2001, Pakistan since 2004 and Somalia since 2007 but never has the body count been as high as this.

Previously the highest tally recorded by the Bureau was 81 killed in a single CIA drone strike in Pakistan in October 2006. In Somalia, the biggest body count was in April 2011 when as many as 36 people were killed in an airstrike.

The attack last weekend hit Raso Camp, “a training facility of al Shabaab,” the Pentagon said in a statement. It killed “fighters who were scheduled to depart the camp [and] posed an imminent threat to US and African Union Mission in Somalia forces in Somalia.”

Pentagon spokespeople would not be drawn on exactly what kind of aircraft were used, beyond saying some were manned and some were drones.

The US has used several kinds of aircraft in Somalia besides drones. It has conducted strikes with jets and helicopters. It has also deployed AC-130 gunships – large propeller driven aircraft.

British aircraft not involved in alleged Iraq civilian casualty events, says minister

Published

February 3, 2016

Written by

Chris Woods

Web link

Royal Air Force combat aircraft were not involved in eight alleged civilian casualty incidents in Iraq in December 2015, according to Britain’s Defence Secretary.

Concerns were first raised by Scottish media and politicians in early January, after cross-referencing of reported civilian casualty incidents with UK airstrikes in Iraq had indicated possible concerns.

Eight claimed incidents in the cities of Mosul and Ramadi had been alleged, for days on which the Ministry of Defence had already confirmed UK airstrikes in the vicinity (see below.) The Scottish National Party led calls for the MoD to investigate whether RAF aircraft might have been involved in any civilian casualty events.

Tomorrow's front @ScotNational @TheCommonSpace investigation demands probe into civilian deaths in Iraq pic.twitter.com/0dpxaGjswN

— The National (@ScotNational) January 7, 2016

How Scotland’s media first reported casualty concerns

In its initial response on January 16th, the MoD dismissed claims that RAF airstrikes might have been responsible for civilian deaths in Iraq but gave few further details. Pressed for more information by Labour MP Graham Allen, the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has now made clear that following an investigation, the MoD is certain UK aircraft played no role in the alleged events.

“RAF aircraft were not involved in strikes in seven of the incidents cited,” according to Mr Fallon. “The eighth incident was impossible to locate from the detail given in the letter: all information from the RAF air strike conducted on that particular day has been reviewed and there was no indication of any civilian casualties resulting from the strike.“

It remains possible that aircraft from other Coalition allies might have been responsible for some of the alleged incidents in Ramadi and Mosul. The MoD says it has already passed on Airwars’ concerns regarding the eight reported events to CENTCOM, the US military command which leads the Coalition’s efforts in Iraq and Syria.

“I welcome the recent change of the MoD’s position, which for the first time has now accepted and examined credible reports of civilian casualties from external organisations,” Graham Allen MP told Airwars. “It is absolutely crucial that the MoD is as transparent as possible about all airstrikes carried out, and that it does not rely on its internal investigations only.“

Despite 534 British airstrikes in Iraq and 26 in Syria to January 28th, the MoD insists there have been no civilian casualties from UK actions. A spokesperson told Airwars: “In the hundreds of air strikes conducted by the RAF we have found no evidence of civilian casualties resulting from UK military action in Iraq or Syria. We do an assessment after every British strike and if we had any reason to believe, either from this analysis or from other credible reports, that there might have been civilian casualties, we would conduct an investigation, in conjunction with Coalition authorities.”

New US admissions

In related news, the Pentagon has continued its own policy of ‘normalising’ the reporting of civilian casualties from US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.

On January 29th CENTCOM released details of four additional casualty events in both Iraq and Syria. No civilians were publicly reported killed or injured in any of the airstrikes at the time, indicating that the US’s internal monitoring mechanisms continue to pick up casualty incidents which might otherwise go unreported.

In the most controversial of the four events, the US now admits that a failed attempt to kill British cyber-jihadist Junaid Hussain in Raqqa on August 13th 2015 instead resulted in eight civilian casualties.

“The strikes that occurred Aug. 13, 2015, were against Junaid Hussain, which resulted in injuries to him that were not fatal,” a CENTCOM spokesman told Airwars. “During this strike, as today’s news release points out, we assessed that three civilians were unfortunately killed and five were injured. Junaid Hussain was killed during a subsequent strike on Aug. 24, 2015, near Raqqah, Syria.”

British cyber terrorist Junaid Hussain. A failed attempt by the US to kill him in August 2015 caused the deaths of at least three civilians in Raqaa

The three other casualty incidents all took place in Iraq in 2015. On July 27th, a US airstrike against ‘ISIL vehicles’ resulted in the injuring of a civilian, CENTCOM now says.

On September 24th, two civilians were killled at Sinjar when their vehicle was caught up in a targeted US strike on a motorbike. “Weapons were released while the target was stopped at an intersection; however, another vehicle approached after weapons were in flight. Both the motorcycle and the vehicle were destroyed,” CENTCOM reported.

In the fourth event, at least two civilians were injured after a vehicle carrying a Daesh cleric was hit by US aircraft – causing it “to veer into oncoming traffic.” According to CENTCOM, the target on October 15th was “ISIL Sharia Judge Mullah Maysar.” Real name Akram Kurbash aka Abu Akram, he was a senior figure in Daesh and a target of previous targeted strikes. He was first reported killed in a Coalition attack on May 13th 2015 by the Iraqi Defence Ministry, a claim later played down by the US.

CENTCOM has now confirmed 16 separate civilian casualty incidents across Iraq and Syria from US airstrikes, as well as one ‘friendly fire’ event which killed Iraqi soldiers. No other member of the 12-strong international Coalition has so far admitted causing any civilian casualties, despite more than 2,000 non-US strikes.

The eight alleged events UK says its aircraft not involved in

Date	Location	Allegation
13/12/15	Mosul	Three professors from University of Mosul among 4 civilians and a Daesh official reportedly killed in alleged Coalition airstrike
	Mosul	Single-source claim that 19 civilians died in Coalition strike on Mosul. However Airwars’ own sources in Nineveh contested claim.
21/12/15	Mosul	Reuters reported that “About 20 people, including at least 12 civilians, were killed on Monday in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, in two air strikes that destroyed houses believed to be used by Islamic State militants, six eyewitnesses and a medical source said.” Well-reported event suggested Coalition responsible.
	Mosul	17 civilians including 4 women and 5 children reported killed in alleged Coalition strike in Wehda and Methak neighbourhoods east of Mosul. Some doubt regarding the incident, with local NRN News denying civilians had died.
	Mosul	According to three Arabic media sources, 6 civilians reportedly killed and 3 injured – all children and women – after Coalition jets allegedly bombed their house in Keseir village east of Mosul.
22/12/15	Ramadi	During fierce air and ground assault on Ramadi, local sources claimed airstrikes had targeted a nearby area, resulting in 8 civilian deaths and 12 injuries.
25/12/15	Ramadi	Military aircraft reportedly killed 5 civilians in a Christmas Day strike. According to local sources the attack could have been either by the Iraq Army or the Coalition.
29/12/15	Mosul	According to local media, vehicles used by Daesh to transport oil were destroyed killing about 15 militants. But the attack also destroyed the ‘Cairo’ gas station, which in turn damaged a number of civilian homes nearby. A house was also reportedly targeted in northern Mosul killing 20 Daesh. But according to media, “the house is located in a residential area and is surrounded by many other homes, which suffered significant physical damage. Civilians were also killed and injured.”

▲ Library image: A British Typhoon is refuelled over Iraq by a US Stratotanker, December 22 2015 (USAF/ Staff Sgt Corey Hook)

Fresh CENTCOM admissions reveal frequency of civilian casualties

Published

January 22, 2016

Written by

Chris Woods

Web link

The Pentagon has confirmed five additional casualty events from US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, which officials say between them killed two civilians while injuring a further four.

Yet all of those described as injured by US officials actually died from their wounds according to the public record – with each victim named at the time by local casualty recorders. That suggests CENTCOM investigators are still not making effective use of credible external reporting when assessing claims.

Airwars understands that this latest US admission is part of a broader Coalition move to ‘normalise’ civilian casualty reporting, after months of officials playing down such claims.

Named victims

The five new confirmed incidents – all within a 13-day time window in July 2015 – make clear that civilian casualties from Coalition strikes are a common event in both Iraq and Syria, as Airwars and others have long indicated.

“One civilian in a truck with a trailer was likely killed” when the Coalition destroyed 16 bridges in the Daesh-controlled city of Raqaa on July 4th, according to US Central Command (CENTCOM) in a press release issued January 22nd.

That death in Raqaa was not publicly reported at the time – suggesting the casualty was only spotted by Coalition aerial surveillance. What its aircraft won’t have been able to see that day was a family of seven reportedly crushed to death when one of the bridges collapsed on top of them according to a later field investigation by BuzzFeed.

On July 7th, US aircraft attacked a group of Daesh fighters, again in Raqqah. According to CENTCOM “a civilian was injured by a secondary explosion and flying debris from the initial strike.” In fact 27-year old Ezz al Deen al Nazzal died of his injuries, as the Syrian Network for Human Rights reported at the time.

A US targeted killing operation against Al Qaeda-linked militant Muhsin al-Fadhli went wrong on July 8th, when a passing motorcycle was caught in the blast (see video below). Rider and passenger were “likely injured” claims CENTCOM. In fact local factory workers Ahmad Mohamad al Tahini, and Hussein Mohammad Kheir al Tahini both died, according to multiple sources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=ErK8-3XP_Sg

Aftermath of a US strike on July 8th which killed two named factory workers

On July 11th the US admits it killed another civilian at Raqqah, named by monitoring groups as Issa Al Hmeidan. Unmentioned in CENTCOM’s report are two additional alleged events in the city that day, in which a mother and her children and a firefighting team were separately reported slain in Coalition airstrikes.

And finally on July 17th, CENTCOM says it “injured” a civilian during a targeted strike on a vehicle in the Iraqi city of Mosul. According to local monitors, waiter Muhannad Hisham Alnemah (pictured below) had tried to rescue a terrified young child in the street during the strike, but was hit by flying shrapnel. He later died of his injuries in hospital.

Confirming the latest civilian casualties, CENTCOM again noted that “We deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from those strikes and express our deepest sympathies to the victims’ families and those affected.”

Waiter Muhannad Hisham, killed in a US airstrike on Mosul July 17 2015 (via Mosul Ateka)

Sharp contrast

What stands out from these latest incidents is not how little is known about civilian deaths from Coalition airstrikes – but how much casualty recorders on the ground are often able to determine from an early stage.

Volunteers with groups such as the Syrian Network for Human Rights and Raqaa Is Being Slaughtered Silently often take great risks gathering such information – only to have their findings often ignored by Coalition partners and international media.

But now there are signs of change. Just weeks ago the Coalition had admitted just two ‘likely’ civilian casualty events. That number has now risen to 13 incidents – and according to Pentagon officials the number of admitted events will continue to rise, as the Coalition seeks to ‘normalise’ reporting of civilian deaths and injuries.

CENTCOM itself plans to confirm an additional four cases in the week beginning January 24th. That will mean a total of 16 civilian casualty cases – and one friendly fire incident – confirmed by the US so far.

Asked to explain why the number of confirmed civilian casualty cases had leapt up in just a few weeks, a CENTCOM spokesman told Airwars that “Based on the balance between keeping the public informed and the lengthy (sometime months) declassification and redaction process associated with individual cases, we made the decision to delink that process from the release of available unclassified information.”

According to CENTCOM, this means that “in accordance with our commitment to transparency, we are working to release the assessment findings of the remaining closed allegations as soon as possible.”

Even so, the Coalition lags far behind the public record when it comes to investigating alleged civilian casualty incidents. As the primary investigator for the Coalition, CENTCOM says it has only assessed 120 such events – and has already deemed 87 of them to be ‘not credible.’

In contrast Airwars believes that out of 320 incidents so far alleged across Iraq and Syria, 135 civilian casualty events involving Coalition partners are already likely to have occured – which between them appear to have killed 830 or more civilians in addition to those already admitted.

Despite more than 2,000 airstrikes by the US’s twelve allies in Iraq and Syria, no other Coalition partner has so far admitted causing any civilian casualties.

US admits five new civilian casualty cases in Iraq and Syria

Published

January 15, 2016

Written by

Chris Woods

Web link

The United States has conceded five fresh civilian casualty incidents in Iraq and Syria which between them killed eight or more non-combatants, it believes.

Analysis suggests the actual toll from these five events is between 14 and 21 civilians killed, raising fresh questions about US and Coalition dependence upon aerial-only footage during post-strike investigations.

Airwars presently estimates that a further 803 to 1,127 civilians are likely to have died in an additional 132 problematic Coalition strikes since August 2014.

Five incidents

In a press release issued January 15th 2016, CENTCOM notes that “After a thorough review of the facts and circumstances for each allegation, the preponderance of evidence indicates five separate U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, between April 12 and July 4, have likely resulted in the death of eight civilians and injuries to an additional three civilians.”

The US military command – which spearheads the international campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also adds: “We deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from those airstrikes and express our deepest sympathies to the victims’ families and those affected.”

Two previous civilian casualty incidents – and one ‘friendly fire’ event – have also been conceded by the United States. The other twelve partners in the alliance claim to have killed no civilians between them – despite more than 2,000 non-US airstrikes against Daesh to January 11th 2016.

For a full assessment of each incident – including all known sources, victim names and supportive photographs and videos – see our 2015 civilian casualty pages

The five new incidents admitted by CENTCOM took place over a three month period beginning April 2015.

Three cases were the result solely of internal reporting by US aircrews and analysts – with no known public records of civilian casualties at the locations for those dates.

Following a strike by an A-10 Warthog at Hawijah in Iraq on April 12th “it was assessed that two unidentified civilians were killed” CENTCOM reports.

On June 19th a civilian was also injured when they strayed into the ‘kill box’ during an attack on ISIL vehicles near Tall al Adwaniyah in Hassakah province, Syria.

And on June 29th 2015, two or more civilians were killed or injured during a US strike on an ISIL tactical unit and two ISIL vehicles. As the attack commenced, two civilian vehicles also approached. As CENTCOM now notes, “there was insufficient evidence to determine the level of injuries to the civilians operating the passing car and motorcycle.”

Underestimating casualties

Two other events conceded by CENTCOM were previously known to field researchers and journalists. And here it seems, the US is underestimating the number of killed and injured.

On June 11th 2015 at Slouk near Raqqa in Syria, US aircraft targeted an ISIL tactical unit. CENTCOM now says its assessment is that “three unidentified civilians were killed.”

Yet local casualty recorders Raqaa Is being Slaughtered Silently had reported almost immediately after the attack that civilian Yusuf Al Sayid had died, along with his two wives and their five children.

Ouday Ammar Al Shawakh, killed in a US airstrike on July 4th 2015 (via SN4HR)

And on July 4th last, a US targeted strike in central Raqaa killed at least seven named civilians – among them three children – rather than the “three unidentified civilians” CENTCOM says were likely killed. Among the non-combatants known to have died that day are Mohammed Khalil Al Raheel (aged 50), Fouad Hamoud Al Nimr (aged 10), Ouday Ammar Al Shawakh (pictured right) and Raed Na’ila (11 years old.)

Despite such discrepancies, the decision by CENTCOM to release fresh details of civilian fatalities is likely to be welcomed by regional casualty recorders and NGOs.

Before now, the Coalition had yet to confirm a single civilian fatality – despite 35,000 bombs and missiles having been dropped on Iraq and Syria to December 31st. Instead, six ‘likely’ civilian deaths had been admitted to – a fraction of the many hundreds of civilians which all casualty recorders agree the Coalition is likely to have killed to date.

David Cameron: ‘We must look at allegations’

In related news, British Prime Minister David Cameron has stepped into an increasingly fraught row regarding alleged civilian casualties from RAF airstrikes.

Airwars researchers identified eight claimed incidents in December 2015 in the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Ramadi, in which a total of 72 to 83 civilian deaths were alleged.

Some of these December incidents are poorly reported, while others are contested. Even so, Airwars believes four of the events – each based on claims by two or more credible sources – warrant urgent investigation. The RAF has confirmed it carried out airstrikes in both cities on the dates in question, alongside other Coalition nations.

David Cameron: ‘We must look at civilian casualty allegations’

Yet the Ministry of Defence (MoD) revealed on January 7th that when it came to assessing whether UK airstrikes in Iraq and Syria might have caused civilian casualties, it would not consider credible reports by outside agencies such as casualty monitors, international news media or NGOs.

Instead, the MoD said it was relying solely on “our own aerial assessments following each strike as well as on the ground evaluations from partners.” The disclosure appeared to contradict earlier assurances by a defence minister that the MoD “would consider all information relating to civilian casualties received.”

Challenged on the issue by the Scottish Nationalists this week, Prime Minister David Cameron appeared to indicate a policy shift: “We take a very careful approach to minimise and eradicate civilian casualties wherever we can. But obviously if people make allegations we must look at them,” he told senior MPs.

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