Airwars Profile picture
The civilian harm watchdog Donate: https://t.co/4sQU7iRH12
Mar 7 5 tweets 2 min read
In 2007, Dutch bombing decimated a residential compound in Afghanistan, killing at least 11 civilians.

Our new visual investigation reconstructs the events leading up to the attack, and delves into the survivors’ 15 year fight for answers.

1/5

airwars.org/investigation/… Using hundreds of pages of court documents, maps, military logbooks and interviews, we reconstructed the events of June 16-17th 2007.

We wanted to understand how a residential complex was wrongly designated as a Taliban firing point – with deadly ramifications.

2/5 Image
Oct 31, 2023 10 tweets 3 min read
With claim and counterclaim over civilian deaths in Gaza, vital stories are being lost or ignored.

Today we release the first of our casualty records - preserving the voices of civilians to build a permanent archive of each life lost.

airwars.org/conflict/israe… Since Hamas militants launched a devastating attack on civilians in Israel on October 7th, Israel has conducted thousands of airstrikes in Gaza.

The Palestinian ministry of health has reported thousands of civilians killed.
Dec 6, 2022 7 tweets 4 min read
🧵Throughout the last two weeks, Somali forces, with the assistance of “local militias and international partners”, have reportedly killed more than 260 of al-Shabaab militants throughout the Lower and Middle Shabelle regions.

airwars.org/conflict/us-fo… Up until recently, the mention of “international partners” mostly referred to @africom. However, as @HarunMaruf reported last week, “Turkish drones are participating in the operations against al-Shabab, by conducting bombings” in Lower and Middle Shabelle. voanews.com/a/somalia-mili…
Dec 6, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
Tonight we will join @scottishwilpf, along with @iainoverton and @msominogue to examine what should happen next on #EWIPA, after 80 states signed on to an international declaration aimed at limiting their use in November By signing on to the declaration, each state recognised the extremely harmful effects such weapons have on civilians. Our recent project mapping
urban conflict have shown, once again, just how harmful #EWIPA are to civilians caught in conflict
airwars.org/conflict-data/…
Apr 8, 2022 10 tweets 2 min read
Our incoming director @Emily_4319 addresses the #EWIPA delegations on the final day of this round of consultations Underpinning these negotiations is an international acknowledgement that we must move beyond a status quo where 'collateral damage' is an accepted and inevitable consequence of modern conflict, without a critical understanding of what this means for those civilians on the ground.
Apr 8, 2022 16 tweets 6 min read
Day 3, the final day, of this round of crucial #EWIPA talks in Geneva.

This thread, updated by our team of
@Emily_4319 Megan Karlshoej-Pedersen, @sanjanamv
and @georgiaedwardz will keep you up to date on the final day of these crucial talks. @Emily_4319 @sanjanamv @georgiaedwardz You can catch up on our Day 1 coverage here -
Apr 7, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
Our head of research and incoming director @Emily_4319 speaks during the #EWIPA negotiations : "Civilians know when harm takes place and often are able to identify who is the perpetrator of that harm ; they are reporting on it at scale and in real time." "Ukraine is just one example of how civilians are reporting on and documenting the horrors of war, even as they are living under it."
Apr 7, 2022 29 tweets 11 min read
Day 2 of crucial #EWIPA talks in Geneva.

This thread, updated by our team of @Emily_4319 Megan Karlshoej-Pedersen, @sanjanamv and @georgiaedwardz will keep you up to date on the second day of these crucial talks. You can find Day 1 of our coverage here -
Apr 6, 2022 26 tweets 12 min read
Day 1 of crucial #EWIPA talks in Geneva.

This thread, updated by our team of @Emily_4319 Megan Karlshoej-Pedersen, @sanjanamv and @georgiaedwardz will keep you up to date on the crucial talks Image @Emily_4319 @sanjanamv @georgiaedwardz Nujeen Mustafa, a Syrian who fled Aleppo after it was largely destroyed by explosive weapons, addresses delegates:
“While you’ve been negotiating whether a declaration should be made, 11,076 people have fallen victim to these weapons" she says

Sep 6, 2021 6 tweets 3 min read
Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the start of the Forever Wars, Airwars tried to answer one simple question - how many civilians have US strikes killed in 20 years?
airwars.org/news-and-inves… Our research team spent months reviewing every reliable assessment of civilian harm caused by US strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
Jul 22, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
Syria: A young child named Osama Adnan Al-Hamid is among those reported killed in a US-led Coalition helicopter attack & airstrikes on the village of Kharbet Al Janous خربة الجاموس according to multiple local sources. The Coalition is claiming no civilians were harmed. More soon The Coalition spokesman has now issued a series of tweets about the event - conceding the death of a young child, though appearing to blame this on Daesh.
Mar 4, 2021 6 tweets 4 min read
2020 was a busy year for Airwars EU Advocacy. In the Netherlands we began a so-called Roadmap Process with the Dutch MoD, engaged with Belgium and spoke with Dutch, French & German MPs on the reverberating effects of explosive weapons in populated areas. airwars.org/news-and-inves… In the Netherlands, Airwars followed the Hawija airstrike accountability process & reviewed declassified information released by MoD that a Dutch official was aware that the expected damage from the strike could be greater than Collateral Damage Estimate.
airwars.org/news-and-inves…
Mar 4, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
2020 saw a steep decline in declared US actions in Yemen - with a total of 18 alleged US actions and none officially declared - the lowest levels of US activity in Yemen since 2011. Among these 18 claimed US actions, two involved reports of civilian harm.
airwars.org/news-and-inves… We outline a clear shift towards more covert & clandestine operations in the country in the later years of the Trump administration. This followed a trend that had begun in June 2019 - the last time CENTCOM had publicly declared a strike in Yemen, despite 32 strike allegations.
Mar 4, 2021 4 tweets 3 min read
The Biden administration has made it harder for the US military and CIA to conduct drone strikes and other lethal actions away from war zones - while it conducts a review into Trump-era policies, including civilian protections. nytimes.com/2021/03/03/us/… The piece, by @charlie_savage & @EricSchmittNYT, adds more detail to @attackerman's own recent report on the review by Biden's national security team. In particular, the Times says it will examine 'how to minimize the risk of civilian casualties.' thedailybeast.com/biden-starts-c…
Mar 3, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
Although civilian harm from foreign belligerents in Iraq was low in 2020, Iraq found itself caught up in rising tensions between Iran and the United States, reaching boiling point following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
airwars.org/news-and-inves… In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, Iran fired ballistic missiles that reportedly caused traumatic brain injuries for up to 100 American troops at Al Asad base outside Baghdad. Aftermath of the US drone s...
Mar 3, 2021 5 tweets 3 min read
As our annual report shows, 2020 was on its way to become the year of most intense US bombing in Somalia - 54 actions were declared by AFRICOM, only seven less than in 2019 airwars.org/wp-content/upl… Image Civilian harm, however, decreased significantly compared to the previous year with 20 to 28 non-combatants alleged killed - the previous year’s tally was 41 to 64 Image
Mar 3, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
Thread: 2020 was a big year for geolocation at Airwars. We upgraded our Turkish & Somali strikes database, released a wealth of locations relating to US strikes in Yemen under Trump; and mapped more than 5,000 air/ artillery strikes in Libya since 2012. airwars.org/news-and-inves… Yemen; Airwars geolocated and visualised 230 individual strikes and alleged civilian harm events. Employing an all-source approach to our work, we sought to reorient public research towards affected civilians on the ground. thx @sinanatra & Riley Mellen. airwars.org/conflict/us-fo…
Mar 3, 2021 8 tweets 3 min read
Thread:
Does the US military have a problem with forgetting the civilian harm it causes? 
1/8 Image In the first days of Donald Trump’s presidency, he approved a raid in a Yemeni village in Yakla.

It was supposed to target a senior leader in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

It went disastrously wrong
2/8
Mar 2, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
Russia and the Assad government began 2020 with a ferocious campaign targeting rebels in several governorates, including Idlib. Overall, at least 398 civilians were killed by Russian actions during the year.
airwars.org/news-and-inves… However of at least 398 civilian deaths allegedly resulting from Russia’s actions in Syria last year, all but 34 occurred before a major ceasefire was enacted on March 5th. That pause in hostilities was prompted by Covid concerns as well as military pressure by Turkey. Image
Mar 2, 2021 6 tweets 3 min read
The Libyan civil war was one of the few conflicts in the world that worsened during the Covid pandemic - between 206 and 249 civilians were allegedly killed by 1,048 airstrikes in Libya in the first five months of 2020 airwars.org/wp-content/upl… Image One reason for the escalation was the ever-increasing internationalisation of the conflict, with Turkish and Emirati drones in the air and Syrian, Russian and Sudanese mercenaries on the ground
Mar 2, 2021 9 tweets 5 min read
Our annual report, out today, finds a significant decline in reported civilian deaths across multiple conflicts during 2020. But also a worrying decline in US military accountability for civilian casualties in Iraq, Syria and Yemen in Trump's last year. airwars.org/news-and-inves… Reported civilian deaths were down during 2020 in each of the five conflict nations we monitor. Partly that may have been to due to a 'Covid effect' as actors shifted to controlling the virus. In Syria and Libya, ceasefires also led to huge falls in locally reported casualties. Image