The U.S. accepts killing more than 140 civilians in just two strikes

The United States has quietly accepted killing more than 140 civilians in two deadly attacks in Yemen last year, among the largest officially recognised civilian tolls in recent history.

The Congress-mandated Department of Defense report, initially leaked to the media but now available online, is an official U.S. government review of all civilian harm allegations in 2025. 

In the two Yemen incidents - which hit a port and a detention centre - the U.S. report accepted that the strikes killed 80 and 68 civilians respectively. This would place them among the largest civilian harm tolls ever accepted by the U.S. government. 

The only comparable admission came in 2017 during the first Trump administration, when a strike allegedly targeting Islamic State snipers collapsed a building where civilians were sheltering. After pressure the U.S. ultimately accepted killing 105 civilians in that strike.

In addition to strikes in Yemen, the report also recognises the U.S. killed a civilian in Somalia and in Iraq in historic incidents, but failed to recognise harm elsewhere in 2025 - including from declared strikes in Nigeria and Syria. The controversial campaign against so-called 'narco-terrorists' in boats is also omitted from the report. 

The report comes after the Trump administration has walked back many of its commitments to civilian protection, cutting funding from critical roles across the Department of Defense.

Emily Tripp, Airwars' Executive Director said, “This report suggests that the U.S. military is increasingly ill-prepared to fight the wars of today while also protecting civilians."

"Admitting to killing 80 civilians in a single strike should prompt major international outcry. How is it possible that one of the most advanced militaries in the world made such a monumental mistake, and then less than a year later did it again in Iran - this time killing more than a hundred children?” 

The 1057 report

The United States is one of the only countries in the world where the military publicly reports on the human toll of its actions. The ‘Annual Report on Civilian Casualties in Connection with United States Military Operations in 2025’ (otherwise referred to by its section in legislation - the ‘1057’), was mandated by Congress in 2018 after significant pressure from civil society groups, including Airwars. The report stands out as a positive example of state practice.

In previous years, however, reports have been delayed, riddled with errors, and often accused of significantly undercounting civilian casualties compared to estimates compiled by independent monitors.

The report released this week covers only incidents that took place within 2025 - so allegations of civilian harm associated with the Venezuela Maduro raid in January of this year and the unprecedented Iran campaign would not be included.

It was seen as a test of civilian harm policies under the new U.S. administration, reflecting the first such release covering military operations in Trump’s second term.

Yemen strikes

In Yemen the United States has been conducting air and drone strikes and occasional raids since 2002, often targeting Al Qaeda-linked militants. But in 2025 the U.S. conducted a major military campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi political and militant group, which controls much of northern Yemen including the capital Sana'a.

The seven-week campaign saw more than 1,000 U.S. strikes on Houthi targets. It also saw a major spike in civilians reported killed - Airwars documentation found that at least 224 civilians were killed in at least 30 separate incidents. That was nearly as many civilians killed as in the previous 20 years of U.S. strikes in Yemen.

In the 1057 report the U.S. officially accepted killing civilians in three separate incidents in Yemen in 2025, including the two mass casualty incidents. All three were referred to the U.S. military by Airwars.

In the first incident - in Sanaa on 6 April, 2025 - the U.S. accepted killing five civilians and injuring a further 25. The number of civilians killed is higher than Airwars' initial incident report - which found between three and four civilians killed. That assessment found the strike involved an attack on the home of Sheikh Saleh Al-Suhaili. Suheili, potentially a member of the Houthi group, was injured.

According to local sources tracked at the time, among those killed were at least three of Al-Suhaili’s children. The 1057 report does not provide a detailed demographic breakdown of civilian deaths.

In the second incident, a series of strikes on Ras Isa Port in Yemen, the U.S. official review accepted 80 civilians had been killed - with a further 171 injured. This figure was slightly below Airwars' estimated toll, which found a minimum of 84 civilians were killed. It is the deadliest strike conceded by the U.S. in nearly a decade.

The majority of those killed were staff at the port, which was decimated by the series of strikes. A Human Rights Watch report concluded the attacks were an "apparent war crime."

In the third incident in Yemen, the U.S. military accepted killing 68 civilians and injuring a further 47 in a series of strikes on a Houthi-run detention facility. This death toll aligns with the casualty toll shared by local sources at the time.

The strike was conducted on a detention facility visited by known humanitarian organisations, and had previously been the subject of misidentification by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia in their own campaign against the Houthis in 2022. The majority of those killed were African migrants who had been detained by the Houthis.

The attacks were seemingly conducted with at least two GBU-39 air-delivered bombs, remnants of which were identified by Airwars' sister site the Open Source Munitions Portal. GBU-39 munitions are commonly used by the United States, Israel and other U.S. allies. Amnesty International said the strike should be investigated as a war crime.

Before this report, the U.S. had previously only accepted two civilian harm incidents in more than 20 years of bombing Yemen - a botched 2017 raid in which 15 civilians were killed, and the killing of an elderly man in a 2019 drone strike. Dozens of other reports of harm have been either ignored or rejected by the U.S. military.

The report said a further 15 incidents are under review from the 2025 war. Airwars tracked a further 12 incidents throughout the campaign, which remain unaccounted for in the 1057 report.

Somalia

In a rare admission of civilian harm from its Somalia campaign, the Department of Defense has now conceded a historic incident conducted in 2018. AFRICOM, the part of the U.S. military responsible for the strike, had previously accepted two civilians were killed in the strike, but updated it to three, saying they had confirmed "the death of one additional civilian, a teenage male." Airwars' assessment of the incident found up to four civilians killed, as well as a number of Al Shabaab militants.

But the report accepted no civilian harm allegations in Somalia from 2025, despite it being a year when the US seemingly conducted a record number of strikes. The report said only that “three reports remain ongoing.” 

This reflects Airwars’ own civilian harm tracking in the country, with at least three incidents of civilian harm released in the year. In the most prominent case, a strike declared by AFRICOM was reported to have killed a local leader and peace activist. 

Iraq and Syria

The U.S. did not concede any civilian harm allegations in Iraq or Syria. While U.S. operations in Iraq remained relatively low tempo in 2025, Airwars did record at least nine allegations of civilian harm in Syria. These incidents account for a minimum of ten civilians likely killed by U.S. actions. 

Some significant incidents Airwars tracked in 2025:

In its July 2025 report, the U.S. joint anti-ISIS operation announced that at least three incidents of harm were open as of June 30 2025. The first of these has now been resolved, with the 1057 report conceding the deaths of eight civilians in a 2018 strike in Iraq.

This incident is likely a case recorded by Airwars at the time, where the U.S. “mistakenly struck” a gathering of Iraqi security forces.

With sporadic reporting from the U.S. joint operation, it is unclear whether the lack of mention of these incidents in the 1057 means that the cases have been rejected or not by the U.S., or if they resulted from non-U.S. partner actions.

Airwars tracked incidents in which at least 12 civilians were killed and at least 11 to 14 others injured in Syria throughout 2025 in incidents that local sources blamed on U.S. forces or the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.

Missing campaigns?

A number of other U.S. military campaigns were either not mentioned at all or only briefly discussed in the report. 

Most prominent among them is the ongoing U.S. military campaign against small boats allegedly linked to the drugs trade. The U.S. has publicly declared conducting 64 strikes against such boats since September 2025, accusing those on board of "narco-terrorism". Airwars has so far tracked 221 people killed, including 25 who survived the strikes but are now presumed dead. Strikes conducted in 2025 account for at least half of that death toll.

An investigation conducted by journalists collective Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP) with support from Airwars, identified 20 victims - finding that individuals were from among the poorest communities in the regions, with loose affiliations to cartels if at all. Senators have questioned if the Department knows the identity of those on the boats.

The 1057 report said only that "No incidents in which civilian casualties more likely than not resulted from U.S. military operations in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility in 2025”. This is likely due to the U.S. claiming those involved in drug smuggling are legitimate military targets, in contrast to the opinions of legal scholars and the United Nations.

Likewise, the report makes no mention of civilian harm in Nigeria. Airwars tracked one incident of civilian harm in Nigeria in which at least five civilians, including two women and a child, were injured when U.S. missiles struck a hotel and other buildings in Offa.

Airwars continues to track incidents of civilian harm from U.S. actions around the world, with each case of civilian harm filed to the relevant commands upon publication.