Civilian deaths in the anti-ISIS bombing campaigns 2014–2015 · 4 Civilian deaths in the anti-ISIS bombing campaigns 2014–2015 civilians or civilian objects, or launch-ing an

Civilian deaths in the anti-ISISbombing campaigns 2014–2015

Cover photo:People gather near a destroyedbuilding after an airstrike by the IraqiAir Force in ISIS-seized city of Fallujah,some 50 km west of Baghdad, Iraq, on24 June 2015. At least seven peoplewere killed and fifteen otherswounded during the bombing onWednesday.

© Sami Jawad/Xinhua Press/Corbis

© Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights andMinority Rights Group InternationalNovember 2015

This report has been produced as part of the Ceasefire project, a multi-year pro-gramme supported by the European Union to implement a system of civilian-ledmonitoring of human rights abuses in Iraq, focusing in particular on the rights of vul-nerable civilians including vulnerable women, internally-displaced persons (IDPs),stateless persons, and ethnic or religious minorities, and to assess the feasibility ofextending civilian-led monitoring to other country situations.

This report has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union.The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of the publishers and can underno circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.

Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights

The Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights is a new initiative to develop ‘civilian-ledmonitoring’ of violations of international humanitarian law or human rights, topursue legal and political accountability for those responsible for such violations,and to develop the practice of civilian rights. The Ceasefire Centre for CivilianRights is registered as a charity and a company limited by guarantee under Englishlaw; charity no: 1160083, company no: 9069133.

Minority Rights Group International

MRG is an NGO working to secure the rights of ethnic, religious and linguisticminorities and indigenous peoples worldwide, and to promote cooperation andunderstanding between communities. MRG works with over 150 partner organ-izations in nearly 50 countries. It has consultative status with the United NationsEconomic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and observer status with the African Com-mission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). MRG is registered as a charityand a company limited by guarantee under English law; charity no: 282305,company no: 1544957.

Written by Sue Eedle and Mark Lattimer with additional research by Miriam Puttick.

Report designed by Staša Sukic.

Material from this publication may be reproduced for teaching or other non-com-mercial purpoes, with appropriate attribution. No part of it may be reproduced inany form for commercial purposes without the prior express permission of the copy-right holders. Published November 2015. Printed in the UK on recycled paper.

IntroductionThis briefing summarizes the existing information, predom-inantly from local sources, on civilian deaths in the bomb-ing campaigns conducted against the Islamic State of Iraqand Al-Sham (ISIS) since January 2014. It complementsother Ceasefire reports which have detailed outrages com-mitted in Iraq by ISIS, as well as other armed actors, includ-ing mass extra-judicial executions, kidnappings, systematictorture, rape and sexual slavery.

The main parties in the air campaigns against ISIS includethe Iraqi Security Forces, supported principally by Iran andthe United States; the US-led Combined Joint Task Force (Op-eration Inherent Resolve), under which a coalition of some12 states including the US have conducted air strikes in Iraqand/or Syria; the Syrian Air Force; and, most recently, theRussian Federation.

Despite legal obligations on parties to armed conflict to ac-count for the dead and the missing, without adverse distinc-

tion, few authoritative sources of information exist on civil-ian deaths in the anti-ISIS campaigns. The UN has publishedsome figures on civilian casualties, generally drawn origi-nally from local sources, but frequently emphasizes the dif-ficulty in verifying information (including that obtainedfrom governmental sources). Information released by bel-ligerents is similarly deficient. The Iraqi and Syrian govern-ments publish almost no information on civilian casualtiesfrom their own operations – and the figures they do dissem-inate on killings by ISIS and other opposition groups fre-quently appear inflated and unreliable.1 The US and othermembers of the international coalition routinely deny alle-gations of civilian casualties but also may refuse to confirmtheir participation in a particular attack, making the attri-bution of responsibility much more difficult.

Most of the information from the ground on civilian casu-alties therefore originates from non-governmental organi-zations (NGOs) and other civilian activists (particularly inSyria), working at considerable risk, supplemented by localmedia sources. This is further supplemented (particularly

Civilian deaths in theanti-ISIS bombingcampaignsJanuary 2014–September 2015

International humanitarian lawand the law of human rightsThe conduct of hostilities and the pro-tection of civilians and other non-combatants in both international andnon-international armed conflicts areregulated by international humanitar-

International lawand the anti-ISIScampaigns

ian law (IHL). The rules of IHL bindboth states and armed oppositiongroups. They are distinct from the in-ternational law governing the re-course to armed force and applyirrespective of the legality or other-wise of any particular recourse toforce (see below).

Parties to conflict must distinguish atall times between combatants andnon-combatants (including civilians

and those hors de combat). Attacks oncivilians and civilian objects are pro-hibited at all times. Indiscriminate at-tacks are also prohibited. Theseinclude attacks which fail to distin-guish between military and civilianobjects, or ones in which expected in-cidental civilian deaths or injury, ordamage to civilian objects, are exces-sive in relation to the concrete and di-rect military advantage anticipated.Intentionally directing attacks against

4 Civilian deaths in the anti-ISIS bombing campaigns 2014–2015

civilians or civilian objects, or launch-ing an indiscriminate attack, is a warcrime. In addition, all feasible precau-tions must be taken in the choice ofmeans or methods of attack to avoid,or in any event minimise, civiliandeath or injury or damage to civilianobjects.

IHL imposes specific duties to inves-tigate civilian deaths. These includean obligation on all parties to iden-tify the dead and the missing, in fur-therance of the right of families toknow the fate of their relatives.There is a further duty on belliger-ents to undertake an investigationwhere a breach of IHL may have oc-curred, including a suspected failureto take all feasible precautions toavoid loss of civilian life.

Human rights law imposes addi-tional obligations on states towardsall those under their jurisdiction. Inrelation to the right to life, this in-cludes an obligation to undertake aninvestigation in any case where anindividual has been killed by stateagents. In addition to binding theIraqi and Syrian governments withregard to any military action takenon their territories, this obligationalso falls on members of the interna-tional coalition where an attack hasled to the death of civilians undertheir effective control.

Under the UN’s Basic Principles andGuidelines on the Right to a Remedyand Reparation for Victims of Gross Vi-olations of International Human RightsLaw and Serious Violations of Interna-tional Humanitarian Law, investiga-tions under both IHL and humanrights law should be effective,prompt, thorough and impartial.2

Legality of the use of forceThe ability of a state to use force toprotect its borders and to suppressarmed insurgency on its own territory,while not unlimited, is universally rec-ognized. The entitlement of such astate to invite military assistance fromforeign states is in some respectsmore controversial, but is nonethelessincreasingly accepted under interna-tional law (at least in circumstanceswhere the threat comes from abroad).This constitutes the primary legal jus-tification for the anti-ISIS operationsconducted in Iraq by Iran, and by theUS and other members of OperationInherent Resolve, in support of theIraqi government (as well as in Syriaby Russia and Iran in support of theSyrian government). In a letter of 20September 2014 to the UN SecurityCouncil, the government of Iraq noti-fied the Council that it had requestedthe US to lead international efforts tostrike ISIS sites and military strong-holds ‘with our express consent’.

The legality of anti-ISIS operations inSyria which are not undertaken withthe consent of the Syrian govern-ment is highly controversial. Spacedoes not permit a detailed descrip-tion of the debate here, but legal ar-guments that have been advancedby belligerents to justify anti-ISIS op-erations in Syria rely primarily on thecollective self-defence of Iraq, underArticle 51 of the UN Charter, in re-sponse to the armed attack(s)launched by ISIS from Syria, wherethe government of Syria does nothave effective control over the terri-tory from which such attacks arelaunched and is unwilling or unableto prevent them. Additionally, it hasbeen argued that certain operationsare justified as individual self-defenceof members of the internationalcoalition in response to an attack orimminent threat of attack on their

own territory. Others, however,maintain that such arguments do notjustify an exception to Article 2(4) ofthe UN Charter which prohibits thethreat or use of force against the ter-ritorial integrity of political independ-ence of any state. UN SecurityCouncil resolution 2249 condemningISIS terrorist attacks, unanimouslyadopted on 20 November 2015, man-ages to add to the controversy with-out resolving it. The resolution doesnot separately authorize military ac-tion but rather ‘calls upon memberstates that have the capacity to do soto take all necessary measures, incompliance with international law, inparticular with the United NationsCharter’ against ISIS and other des-ignated terrorist groups.

The disputed doctrine of ‘humanitar-ian intervention’ was earlier cited bythe UK to justify a planned attack onSyria in 2013 in response to the use ofchemical weapons. While the anti-ISISoperations are instead legallygrounded in the collective self-de-fence of Iraq, civilian protection hasbeen widely invoked as an associatedmotive. The US, the UK and the gov-ernment of Iraq have all, for example,described the aims of such opera-tions as ‘to end the continuing armedattacks on Iraq, to protect Iraqi citi-zens, and ... regaining control of Iraqiborders’ [emphasis added].3 If thepurpose of armed force is, inter alia,civilian protection, then the use offorce should be necessary and pro-portionate in relation to that purpose.

It should be noted that this is only asummary of the arguments under in-ternational law; the legality of theanti-ISIS operations under nationalor constitutional law or convention(including the question of congres-sional or parliamentary approval) hasalso proved controversial.

5

in Iraq) by some figures from hospitals and healthauthorities, although the absence of any compre-hensive data series makes even just an accuratetally of total fatalities from air strikes problematic.

Civilian casualtiesfrom bombing in IraqIn May 2013 the Iraqi Army launched OperationShabah (Phantom), with the support of the airforce, aimed at severing contact between Al-Qaedain Iraq and Islamist militants in Syria along theborder, and in July it announced a campaign toclear out insurgent bases in Anbar and NinewaProvinces. A further crackdown by governmentforces on largely peaceful Sunni demonstrationsin Ramadi on 30 December 2013, in which civiliandeaths included three children,4 helped trigger arenewal of armed conflict in Anbar Province be-tween local residents, Iraqi Security Forces andmultiple armed groups.

After the fall of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi toISIS control on 4 January 2014, the ISF’s war onSunni militants escalated sharply and air strikesbecame a regular occurrence. On 22 January, forexample, the defence ministry said ‘painful and ef-fective air strikes’ against targets in AnbarProvince the previous day had killed more than 50ISIS militants.5

The monitoring group Iraq Body Count records thefirst civilians killed in air attacks by the Iraqi Se-curity Forces (ISF) from 4 January 2014 and fre-quently from then on until 17 July 2014, the latestdate for which it has confirmed data. During thisperiod it tallies 468 civilian casualties of ISF air at-tacks, all of them, until June, in Anbar Province,and the vast majority in residential areas of Fallu-jah, followed by Ramadi.6

From 9 May 2014 the first civilian casualties frombarrel bombs began appearing in the IBC data-base, in addition to mortar and artillery shellingand other air strikes. Human Rights Watch also re-ported that government forces dropped barrelbombs on residential neighbourhoods of Fallujahand surrounding areas from early May, part of anintensified campaign against armed oppositiongroups including ISIS, causing civilian casualtiesand forcing thousands of residents to flee.7 In July

2014 HRW described a consistent pattern of aerialbombardments in residential areas by govern-ment forces using helicopters, jets, and other air-craft, hitting areas surrounding mosques,government buildings, hospitals, and power andwater stations, as part of a drive to retake areascontrolled by ISIS fighters and other Sunni armedgroups.8

UN casualty reporting

From December 2013, the monthly casualty re-ports collated by the UN Assistance Mission forIraq (UNAMI) began to carry caveats concerningdata on ‘casualties of the current IA [Iraqi Army]operation in Anbar’ because of problems with ver-ification. From that point on, UNAMI has reportedAnbar casualties separately using figures providedby the Anbar Health Directorate, which it says itcan sometimes only partially verify.

In July 2014, and for that month only, UNAMIbroke down recorded incidents by category andattributed casualties to each category as follows:

‘UNAMI recorded a minimum 400 security inci-dents in different parts of Iraq. Among these in-cidents are included: 62 incidents by air attack[which] caused a minimum of 823 casualtieskilled and injured. 30 incidents caused by vehicleborne improvised explosive devices (VBIED) andsuicide vehicle borne improvised explosive de-vices (SVBIED), which caused a minimum of 535casualties killed and injured. 78 incidents usingimprovised explosive devices (IEDs) caused a min-imum of 322 civilian casualties killed and injured.67 incidents with small arms fire (SAF) caused aminimum of 141 casualties killed and injured.’ 9

The breakdown does not classify incidents byactor, or casualties by whether they are civilian ornon-civilian. However, these casualties occurredin the context of a total of 1,186 civilians and 551non-civilians killed during the month in additionto 198 civilians killed in Anbar Province, reportedseparately, of whom 127 were in Fallujah.10 Thiswas the month before the international coalitioncommenced its air campaign, so the strikes arepresumed to have been carried out by the Iraqi Se-curity Forces (ISF). The office of the UN High Com-missioner for Refugees and the InternationalOrganization on Migration reported that hundreds

Civilian deaths in the anti-ISIS bombing campaigns 2014–2015

6

of thousands of internally-displaced people hadfled from Anbar during the year so far.

UNAMI reported in September 2014 that an in-creasing number of civilian casualties were beingattributed to air strikes carried out by the Iraq Se-curity Forces (ISF). It detailed specific incidents giv-ing rise to 222 civilian deaths, including manywomen and children, and 237 wounded, between21 June and 1 September 2014 as a result of ISF airstrikes alone, in addition to the documented casu-alties of ISF artillery shelling and the actions of gov-ernment-allied militia groups. While there was noevidence that the ISF deliberately targeted civilians,it said, the strikes nevertheless resulted in signifi-cant civilian deaths and injuries and destruction ofcivilian infrastructure. It quoted the ministry of de-fence as saying the air strikes directly targeted ISISand associated armed groups, but these deliber-ately positioned themselves in civilian areas orcivilian facilities such as hospitals in an attempt toshield themselves from attack. UNAMI’s commenton this was to reiterate the requirement that ISFtake constant care and all feasible precautions toavoid or at any rate minimise incidental loss ofcivilian life, and ensure its operations were propor-tional to the military advantage anticipated.11

In response to the increasing civilian casualties at-tributed to air strikes and shelling, on 13 Septem-ber 2014 the newly elected prime minister,Hayder al-Abadi, ordered the air force to haltstrikes on civilian areas even where ISIS was pres-ent, and expressed his commitment to protectcivilians;12 however, airstrikes continued in Fallu-jah and northern Iraq to the end of the year,killing hundreds more civilians. Sources in Fallu-jah General Hospital (which itself came underrocket and shell fire several times) reported that144 bodies (including 18 children) had been re-ceived during September, 398 bodies (including26 children) during October, and 294 bodies (in-cluding 8 children) during November. Sources inthe hospital alleged that most of these casualtieshad resulted from shelling carried out the by Iraqiarmy and associated forces.13 UNAMI was not ableto verify this claim, or these figures, and has com-mented elsewhere on the difficulty of attributingair strikes to specific military forces, and of assess-ing whether the ISF has met the requirements ofdistinction and proportionality when ISIS deliber-ately bases itself in civilian areas.

From the monthly statistics published by UNAMI,Fallujah alone appears to have accounted on aver-age for around 14 per cent of all civilian casualtiesrecorded in the country during the second half of2014, and nearly 25 per cent in November, thoughthese deaths are not attributed to any particularactor or actors.14

Regional andinternational militaryinterventionWhether or not the use of barrel bombs by the ISFhad been prompted by a lack of more sophisticatedand high-precision equipment, by mid-2014 Bagh-dad was desperate to build up its air power. It hadbeen reduced to a few dozen fixed-wing propellerplanes and helicopters carrying US-supplied Hell-fire missiles since Saddam Hussein’s once-mightyair force had been wiped out in 2003. The Iraqi gov-ernment now ordered 36 F-16 fighter jets from theUnited States, in the meantime it negotiated the re-turn of some decades-old Soviet- and French-builtaircraft impounded by the Iranians during theIran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and secured delivery ofa handful of second-hand jets from Russia and Be-larus.15

A senior US military officer speaking to The Wash-ington Post at the time voiced concerns that usingthe outdated technology could mean large num-bers of civilian casualties. ‘Even when you getthem, you still need training for pilots,’ he said,pointing out that many of the Iraqis who weretrained to fly them were also now too old.16 Sincethen there have indeed been cases where civiliancasualties have been blamed on the poorly trainedand equipped air force, according to The WallStreet Journal. On 6 July 2015 a Russian-madeSukhoi fighter jet returning from a mission againstISIS targets in western Iraq accidentally droppeda bomb on a residential area of Baghdad, killingseven people. The bomb, which had failed to re-lease from the aircraft earlier in the flight, al-though the pilot tried six times to drop it, finallydetached as it flew over the capital. A governmentspokesman said the pilot was among the country’smost qualified. The previous day, eyewitnesses inFallujah said an Iraqi jet fighter killed more than50 young men when it mistakenly dropped a


7

bomb on a soccer field in the city instead of its in-tended ISIS target.17

Major setbacks for the Iraqi armed forces, reveal-ing their inadequacies, prompted logistical andmaterial support and ultimately intervention byexternal players keen to prevent ISIS making fur-ther gains. After the fall of Fallujah in January2014 the United States said it was speeding up thesupply of surveillance drones and Hellfire missilesto Iraq.18 After the debacle of the ISIS takeover ofMosul five months later, and reports of ISIS atroc-ities in the north of the country, the US began un-dertaking reconnaissance missions over northernIraq, and on 8 August they started bombing ISISpositions at the request of the Iraqi government.

Even before that, however, the Islamic Republicof Iran had responded to the growing strength ofISIS by sending General Qassem Soleimani of theIranian Revolutionary Guards Corp to help organ-ise Baghdad’s counter-campaign.19 In mid-JuneIran started flying drones over Iraq, and in July itsent Iraq several Sukhoi Su-25 aircraft to useagainst ISIS.20 At the same time it began discreetlydeploying its own jet aircraft across the border ineastern parts of Iraq. This was initially the subjectof some speculation but appeared subsequentlyto be confirmed by US officials, who were how-ever keen to point out that they were not collabo-rating with the Iranians.21

There were also occasionally strikes across thewestern border by Syrian government aircraft at-tacking ISIS positions and causing civilian casual-ties. On 24 June 2014, for example, Syrianwarplanes reportedly struck suspected ISIS targetsin western Iraq, close to Al-Qa’im and in Al-Rutba,killing at least 57 civilians and injuring 138.22

Since the US-led international coalition com-menced attacks on Iraq on 8 August2014 and onSyria on 22 September 2014, members of the coali-tion have conducted to end September 2015 some4,606 airstrikes in Iraq and 2,596 airstrikes inSyria, according to figures released by the Com-bined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Re-solve. Although civilian casualties are generallydenied by the coalition (see below), in both coun-tries local monitors have alleged hundreds of civil-ian deaths. For example, the editor-in-chief of theNinewa Journalists Network, Mohammed Al-Bay-

ati, claimed in August 2015 that 37 civilians, in-cluding nine children, had been killed by coalitionairstrikes in Ninewa in northern Iraq, and a fur-ther 72 had been injured. In the same month theSyrian Network for Human Rights reported thekilling of 225 civilians, including 65 children and37 women, by international coalition airstrikesagainst ISIS since the start of coalition operationsin Syria. SNHR told Al-Araby that in the first fivemonths the coalition targeted ISIS sites lying out-side of inhabited areas, in addition to oil facilities,supply routes, and some targets within cities andtowns. However, in the period after January 2015the coalition began targeting villages and citiesunder ISIS control.23

Some Iraqi commanders appear to believe that thecoalition exercising less prudence with regard tocivilian casualties would aid the fight against ISIS.Following the fall of Ramadi, the capital of AnbarProvince, to ISIS in May 2015, Iraqi officials ex-pressed criticism that the US was being too cau-tious in its air campaign.24 The commander of theIraqi air force announced on 6 September 2015that it had conducted its first airstrikes against ISISusing the new F-16 fighters acquired from the US.Lt-Gen Anwar Hama Amin told AFP that ‘smartweapons’ were used in the strikes.25

Public reaction in Iraqto civilian deathsCivilian deaths from anti-ISIS bombardment, par-ticularly in Sunni Arab areas, are the subject of in-tense political and media debate in Iraq, althoughit is rarely reflected in the international media.The repeated calls by the US and other interna-tional partners of Iraq that the Iraqi governmentshould be politically ‘inclusive’ of Sunni represen-tation fail to acknowledge the degree of polarisa-tion created by this issue.

In September 2014, soon after the formation of thenew government: Parliamentary speaker Salim al-Jabbouri warned against civilian casualties, tellingthe US Secretary of State that air raids against ISISshould not lead to civilian deaths, according to Iraqimedia. Jabbouri said Iraqi forces should immedi-ately stop the use of barrel bombs and indiscrimi-nate artillery shelling of Sunni areas of Iraq that areunder ISIS control. He said random shelling of civil-


8

ians is unacceptable; innocent people pay the priceand their resentment will increase.32 Internationalorganisations have repeatedly warned of risingnumbers of civilian casualties, particularly in Fal-lujah, and tribal elders have called on forces to dis-tinguish between targets.33

On 5 July 2015, amid reports of a renewed escala-tion of attacks on Fallujah by the ISF and the ShiaPopular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a discussionprogramme on Al Jazeera asked what was so spe-cial about Fallujah, and why civilians were payingthe price.34 Abdulqader al-Nayel, a tribal sheikhfrom Anbar, saw Fallujah as having historical sym-bolic significance as a bastion of resistance towould-be occupiers of Iraq over the centuries, in-cluding invaders from ancient Persia and more re-cently the United States. The civilian casualties inFallujah, al-Nayel said, were ‘a badge of shame forthe PMF, the Abadi government and the interna-tional community, which remains silent aboutthese crimes...’ PMF spokesman Karim al-Nouri dis-puted al-Nayel’s accusations and insisted that thePMF gave Fallujah residents every opportunity tomake their way to safety before launching attacks.

On 6 July 2015 the Sunni bloc in the Iraqi parlia-ment issued a statement accusing the Iraqi airforce of dropping barrel bombs on civilian-popu-lated areas of Fallujah. According to the WataniAlliance led by Iyad Allawi, 90 civilians had beenkilled and 100 injured in ISF air and artillerystrikes on Fallujah since the beginning of Ra-madan (on 17 June). The government respondedwith a statement denying that its forces were in-discriminately bombing civilian areas under ISIScontrol.35

Government supporters of the bombing cam-paigns often question not just the loyalty of com-munities in ISIS-held areas of Anbar and Mosul,but even their civilian status. The comments ofState of Law MP Mohammed Saadoun al-Sayhoudto an Iraqi news outlet on 2 June are not untypical:‘The inhabitants of the cities violated by the ter-rorist Da’esh have now fled to Baghdad and otherprovinces. What you have in Mosul and Anbar isDa’esh, Ba’athists, Saddamists and former Repub-lican Guard officers, and they are lined up behindDa’esh to kill the sons of the Iraqi people of allsects and ethnicities.36


On 23 April 2013 in Hawija in Kirkukprovince the Iraqi Security Forces at-tacked a camp of protestors demon-strating against the Shia-dominatedgovernment of Nouri al-Maliki.

Scores of people were killed over twodays of violence, with the ISF report-edly deploying helicopter gunships.Estimates of civilian-dead varied, butincluded eight children.26,27 Thisepisode marked a significant mile-stone in the evolution of Arab Spring-style expressions of Sunni grievancesinto an armed struggle led by tribalmilitias that coincided with the rise ofISIS in Sunni regions of Iraq.

Spotlight:Hawija

Hawija’s Sunni population and its lo-cation 40 km south of Kirkuk make itof considerable strategic importancein the conflict and it was the target ofrepeated airstrikes by the ISF during2014. Kirkuk Now, an Iraqi media out-let, reported eyewitnesses in Hawijasaying IS militants were exploitingrandom shelling of civilian housesand shops to recruit young men. Wit-nesses told Kirkuk Now that armedmen visit houses that have beenshelled and invite the occupants tofight with them against the govern-ment.28

On 3 June 2015 Hawija was the scenceof one of the largest alleged losses ofcivilian life by a single internationalcoalition action to date, whenairstrikes targeted an ISIS facility

making vehicle-borne improvised ex-plosive devices. The aftermath waswidely reported and recorded on so-cial media. The head of Kirkuk’s Arabcouncil estimated the dead and in-jured at 150 and a Kurdish outlet re-ported 70 killed, including 22 womenand 26 children.29 On 5 June Lt-GenHesterman, the Combined Forces AirComponent Commander, blamed thescale of the destruction on secondaryexplosions and said ‘we haven’t seenany evidence of civilian casualties sofar’.30 Local residents told Reutersthat the scence of the strike resem-bled the site of an ‘earthquake’ andcompared it to the ‘site of a nuclearbomb’.31 The Pentagon later an-nounced that the allegations of civil-ian deaths were credible and that ithad opened a full investigation.

9

However, in a rare indication that the governmentmight be responsible for some civilian casualties,the Council of Ministers announced on 28 Septem-ber 2015 that the ministry of finance had paid outIQD 36 billion in compensation to those affectedby ‘military operations, military errors and terror-ist operations’ over a three month period fromApril-June 2015.37

Finally, it should be noted that the theme of civil-ian casualties of Iraqi, Iranian, US and coalitionbombing is a staple of ISIS propaganda. ISIS-re-lated websites and social media outlets continuallypublish photographs, videos and written reportsof the civilian dead and injured, particularly chil-dren, women and the infirm, and damage toplaces of worship and civilian infrastructure. ISISbombings in Shia areas of Baghdad are presentedas revenge for attacks on communities in Fallujah.The UK-based Quilliam Foundation notes in a re-port on ISIS communications: ‘Graphic evidence ofcivilian casualties is Islamic State’s lifeblood andthe more graphic the evidence, the more powerfulthe propaganda.’ 38

Civilian casualtiesfrom bombing in SyriaISIS, primarily an Iraqi organisation, was a rela-tively late entrant to the Syrian war. The conflictbetween the Syrian government and armed oppo-sition groups began in 2011 and has since claimedup to a quarter of a million lives. Serious violationsof international humanitarian law have been com-mitted by many parties to the conflict, but thegreatest responsibility lies with the Syrian govern-ment itself, including in its intensive aerial bom-bardment of residential areas in Aleppo, Homsand other cities. A VDC report on the use of barrelbombs in Syria, for example, claims 6,589 civilianswere killed by this means from the start of theSyria crisis to the end of May 2015, including 3,831since UN Security Council Resolution 2139 explic-itly banned their use on 14 February 2014. Over 60per cent of these deaths occurred in AleppoProvince.39 VDC’s monthly statistical reports shedsome light on the distribution of casualties moregenerally. Of a total of 1,579 ‘victims’ killed in Syriain May 2015, for example, 1,126 (71 per cent) werecivilians. 764 of them (48 per cent of the total) dieddue to ‘strikes and barrel bombs’; 745 of these (97

per cent) were civilians. (The report also records‘more than 187 documented killed by ISIS’, includ-ing more than 82 civilians.)40

For the period covered by this report, 1 January2014 – 30 September 2015, the VDC database listsnearly 12,000 civilian deaths from ‘warplaneshelling’ in Syria, the vast majority of which canbe inferred to be caused by Syrian forces.41 How-ever, only a small proportion of these casualtiesare connected to anti-ISIS bombing – the subject ofthis report – in the sense that they resulted fromstrikes against ISIS targets or bombardment ofareas controlled by ISIS. In fact, the Syrian govern-ment appeared to avoid engaging ISIS even as itsterritorial control expanded across eastern Syria,only commencing action in the latter half of 2014(see box overleaf).

The international coalition commenced airstrikesagainst ISIS targets in Syria some six weeks afterit started bombing Iraq. The Syrian Observatoryfor Human Rights (SOHR) estimates civilian deathsfrom coalition strikes in the ten months from 22September 2014 to 25 July 2015 at 173, including53 children and 35 women (compared with 3,042mainly non-Syrian Islamist militants killed in theattacks).45 SOHR said most of the incidents of civil-ian deaths from coalition actions were caused bystrikes on oil refineries, oil wells, buildings and ve-hicles. In the worst single incident, on 30 April2015, 64 people were killed when coalition war-planes struck Bir Mahli village near Serrin inAleppo Province. They included 16 girls and 15boys under 18, and 19 women.46

Russian forces announced the start of their aircampaign to support the Syrian government at theend of September 2015. Although the Russian gov-ernment said that it was targeting ISIS, and strikesagainst ISIS were recorded in Raqqa and Aleppoprovinces, the vast majority of the Russian strikesto date have targeted other Syrian oppositiongroups. In the first month of bombing, Russian at-tacks killed at least 254 civilians, according to theSyrian Network for Human Rights. Monitoringgroups have recorded the use of cluster munitions,thermobaric bombs and white phosphorus. Giventhe means used and the indiscriminate nature ofsome of the attacks, it is likely that civilian casual-ties will increase sharply if Russian airstrikes con-tinue or expand.


10

Aggregate statistics oncivilian deathsIn September 2015, an Iraqi government officialfrom the Ministry of Health spoke to the media onthe condition of anonymity about civilian deathstolls caused by international coalition and govern-ment airstrikes.47 He said that 89 per cent of victimsof the ongoing violence in Iraq are civilians, mostof whom were killed by aerial bombardment,rocket attacks and shelling targeting Iraq’s north-ern and western cities. The official referred to a‘large, worrying rise’ in the number of victims ofinternational coalition air strikes. He said that thecoalition was responsible for the deaths of around130 civilians, including nine families who werestruck inside their homes, due to error and theshelling of ISIS targets in residential areas usinghigh-destruction rockets. The official said that thedeath toll remained much lower than the number

of victims of bombardment by Iraqi planes, wherethe number of civilian victims exceeds 3000, mostof them in Mosul, Tikrit, Falluja, Baiji and Hawija,in addition to Al-Karma and Hit in western Iraq.

A medical report from Fallujah General Hospital,a copy of which was obtained by news outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadid,48 indicates that the civilian deathtoll resulting from daily attacks from the begin-ning of 2014 to May 2015 reached 2,800, including358 children under the age of 10 and 208 women.4,609 other civilians were injured, including 441women and 524 children.

According to the report, most of the victims werekilled by barrel bombs and random rockets,which fall on civilian areas leaving behind mas-sive destruction. Moreover, 60 per cent of thoserecorded as injured are suffering from perma-nent disabilities, such as loss of limbs, blindness,paralysis or untreatable burns.


Until August 2014 Syrian forces hadlargely avoided engaging ISIS, but inthat month a series of airstrikes werecarried out in Raqqa. According toSOHR, in addition to ISIS fighters atleast six civilians were killed and teninjured. A resident told Al Jazeerathat ‘About 30 per cent of the strikeshit the Islamic State positions, therest hit civilian areas’.42

On 25 and 27 November 2014 some225 civilians were massacred in a se-ries of airstrikes by Syrian forces oncivilian areas of Raqqa. Locationsbombed included a public marketopposite the national museum, andthe entrance to the industrial cityeast of Raqqa opposite the shrine ofSheikha Owais al-Qarni. The greatestloss of life was caused when a sec-

Spotlight:Raqqa

ond missile at the latter locationkilled those who had rushed to helpvictims. Numbers and identities ofthe dead were recorded by medicalprofessionals, the Syrian Arab RedCrescent and media activists, as re-ported to the Violations Documenta-tion Center in Syria. A witness toldthe VDC: ‘In Raqqa, we don’t haveany ambulances currently as [ISIS]confiscated them all. Thus, relief op-erations are carried out only by theRed Crescent, which lack medicalpersonnel and supplies.’43

The best-known civilian monitoringgroup in the city maintains the web-site Raqqa is Being SlaughteredSilently. Although one of thefounders, Ibrahim Abd al Qader, andanother journalist were found shotand beheaded on 30 October 2015 inUrfa in Turkey in an attack claimedby ISIS, the group continues to oper-ate. A blog post dated 20 October

2015 describes the impact of a recentseries of airstrikes from 17 Septem-ber that hit schools, hospitals, indus-trial neighbourhoods and residentialareas, resulting in the deaths of fourISIS members and some 70 civilians.On the basis of their flight character-istics and munitions, the activistidentifies the aircraft involved asRussian (despite this being beforethe official announcement of Russ-ian airstrikes on 30 September), al-though this is unconfirmed. The postends: ‘...hearing the sound of air-planes is ordinary and the absenceof it is the exception to the civilians[…] persecuted by the destructionand death from all over the world[;]who did not die as a result of the ISISpractices on the ground, his fate willbe the death coming from the skysent by the Russian aviation and itsally the regime, or death as a resultof mistakes committed by the inter-national coalition aviation.’44

11

The monitoring group Iraq Body Count (IBC)maintains the most widely-referenced databaseon the civilian casualties of violence in Iraq. Itsoverview of the year 2014 states:

‘The year 2014... reflects an increase in violenceto levels not seen since the worst years of 2006and 2007. The rise of the group Islamic State (orISIS or ISIL) as a major force in the conflict, aswell as the military responses by the Iraqi Gov-ernment and the re-entry of US and Coalition airforces in the conflict, have all contributed to theelevated death tolls... Actions by, and by others inreaction to, ISIS appear only to have worsenedan existing trend in rising civilian casualties.’ 49

Among the 17,049 civilians IBC recorded killed in2014, 10,858 were reported killed by unidentifiedactors; 1,748 were reported killed by the Iraqi mil-itary in daily air strikes, primarily in and aroundFallujah, while 4,325 were killed by ISIS. 118 civil-ians were reported killed by US-led coalition airstrikes, the first time since 2011 that civilian deathswere directly attributable to coalition actions.50

In preliminary analysis of 2015 data commis-sioned by Ceasefire, IBC reports that in the year upto end September, civilian deaths from Iraqi gov-ernment air strikes and bombardment totalled1,067. There was a striking rise in casualties frominternational coalition air strikes, totalling 610

civilian deaths, as well as a further 126 killed inair strikes by unspecified parties.

Turning to Syria, the main Syrian monitoringgroups have broadly comparable figures for civil-ian deaths from international coalition strikes (seetable), averaging at 227 deaths up until August2015. The greater difficulty is assessing how manyof the thousands of civilian victims of aerial bom-bardment by Syrian forces to include as part of thecampaign against ISIS. In the table a conservativeestimate has been made based on VDC figures forcivilian deaths in 2014-15 from ‘warplane shelling’in the provinces of Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir Ezzor.

Airwars, a UK-based monitoring group, has com-piled, analysed and sought to verify available dataon civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes inboth Iraq and Syria. It draws on data from the USand other members of the coalition as well as fromthe main civilian monitoring groups.51

Airwars reports that, to the end of September2015, it had in total recorded 229 alleged civiliancasualty incidents involving the coalition datingback to August 2014. The overall alleged civil-ianfatality range was 621 to 1,859. Airwars considersthat 103 of these events are ‘fairly report-ed’ andare of particular concern – with two or more datasources and coalition strikes confirmed in the nearvicinity. It says that some 621 to 857 reported fa-


Civilian deaths in the anti-ISIS bombing campaigns, January 2014 – September 2015, by actor and information source

Government forces

Iraq

Health Ministry (unofficial)Iraq Body CountJoint Combined Task Force (Intl. coalition)

Syria

Violations Documentation CenterSyrian Network for Human RightsSyrian Observatory for Human RightsJoint Combined Task Force (Intl. coalition)

Iraq / Syria

Airwars

3,0002,815–

629Breakdown unavailableBreakdown unavailable–

–

International Coalitiona

1307284

276b

225c

181c

2

621-857

Unspecified

–126–

––––

–

a From 8 August 2014 / b To June 2015 / c To August 2015

12

talities across Iraq and Syria were associated withthese credible incidents.

The Combined Joint Task Force (internationalcoalition) has itself only publicly acknowledged sixcivilian deaths, two children in Syria in November2014 and four civilians at Hatra in Iraq on 13March 2015.

Comparison and collation of the data on civiliancasualties is made more difficult because of thedifferent reporting periods and the different ways

in which incidents have been categorised andrecorded. But it is perhaps unrealistic to expecttotal consistency between different sources. Thedifficulties of reporting, investigating and verify-ing casualty claims in the field are many and com-plex, not least on account of the extreme securitysituation in ISIS-held areas. In addition, the mul-tiple conflicting interests at play create a fog ofcontradictory information and disinformation.Sometimes alleged civilian deaths turn out tohave been those of fighters. Sometimes the perpe-trators of attacks are not identified. Some inci-


There is a startling disparity betweenthe number of civilian deaths frominternational coalition airstrikes doc-umented by civilian monitoringgroups, totalling several hundred,and the number acknowledged bythe coalition itself – currently just sixdeaths, although a series of furtherincidents are under investigation.How can this discrepancy be ex-plained? Experience from Afghan-istan and from earlier phases of theIraq conflict suggests that the num-ber of civilian deaths admitted bythe coalition will rise as investiga-tions are completed, but other pos-sible factors include:

• Incorrect identification of attacker.Monitoring groups on the groundhave sought to identify the au-thors of airstrikes by the shape,sound and flight paths of aircraft;the blast pattern, effects andremnants of munitions; aircraftcommunications intercepts; andcorrelation of the timing of at-tacks with the limited informationpublished by the international

Explainingdiscrepancies

coalition. However, as the num-ber of parties to the conflict hasgrown, and parties such as theISF have acquired more sophisti-cated capability, attacks may beincorrectly attributed.

• Incorrect identification of victim.The location of ISIS fightersamong the civilian population andthe lack of uniforms or distinctiveemblem can lead to confusion be-tween fighters and civilians. Localmonitors and families of the deadmay often be able to make a pos-itive identification of victims, butthere have been cases of the civil-ian dead incorrectly identified asfighters and vice versa.52

• Inconsistent definition of combatant/fighter. The law of the GenevaConventions makes it clear thatpersons taking no active or directpart in hostilities are protectedfrom attack. However, the statusof some civilians, for examplethose who provide logistical orother support to members ofarmed groups, may be disputed.This is of particular concern in cir-cumstances where an armedgroup situates itself among a

civilian population and wherecivilians are coerced into provid-ing support.

• Duplication of reports. The exis-tence of multiple sources of infor-mation may assist data trian-gulation but might also carry adanger of duplication for thoseseeking to compile aggregate sta-tistics on civilian casualties. How-ever, the fact that each of the maincivilian monitoring groups com-piles casualty lists as a separateseries, and publishes supportingdata transparently, means thatthis is unlikely to be a major factor.

• Investigative challenges on theground. Journalists and officialhuman rights monitors have noaccess to ISIS-held territory. Thisunderlines the importance of civil-ian monitors, often working undergreat risk, both in reporting viola-tions committed by ISIS and alsodocumenting civilian casualties re-sulting from the anti-ISIS bombingcampaigns. Without greater trans-parency from the internationalcoalition, however, their work can-not yet be corroborated or any er-rors they make rectified.

13

dents are contested, where there are claims ofboth coalition and government aircraft havingcarried out strikes in the same area at roughly thesame time.

With regard to casualties caused by the interna-tional coalition, Airwars argues that efforts tolimit the risk to civilians are hampered by an ab-sence of effective transparency and accountabil-ity from nearly all coalition members. Of thetwelve, it says, only Canada has consistentlystated in a timely fashion both where and whenit carries out air strikes.53 It cites the example ofa coalition strike on an ISIS local headquartersand detention centre at Al-Bab in AleppoProvince on 28 December 2014, which killed 58or more civilian detainees and family members,including at least four women, as well as a num-ber of ISIS guards, as recorded by the ViolationsDocumentation Center. Pentagon officials said itsforces never struck the building and blamed thedeaths on a Syrian government strike two daysearlier. Only after repeated enquiries by a USnews agency did a CENTCOM spokesman finallyconcede, almost two weeks later on 10 January2015, that coalition aircraft ‘did strike and de-stroy an ISIL headquarters building in Al Bab onDec. 28’.54

The lack of transparency not only makes it impos-sible to scrutinise coalition members’ actions, butalso poses problems for the surviving civilians onthe ground, who are unable to claim compensa-tion to which they may be entitled if they do notknow which state is responsible for their injuriesor loss of family members.55 A senior spokesmanfor US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmedto Foreign Policy magazine in December 2014 thatthe United States was not planning to grant com-pensation for civilians killed in such strikes. A De-fense Department official claimed thecongressional authorisation for the payments inAfghanistan was only temporary and did notapply to the current campaign in Syria or Iraq.56

Meanwhile, the White House acknowledgedshortly after international airstrikes against ISISbegan in late September 2014 that the strict stan-dards President Obama had imposed the previousyear to prevent civilian deaths from US dronestrikes would not apply to US military operationsin Syria and Iraq.57

Conclusions andrecommendationsOver 4,000 civilians have been killed in the anti-ISIS bombing campaigns during 2014-15, accordingto available monitoring information based on cred-ible local sources. The majority of these deaths,over 2,800, resulted from often indiscriminatebombardment by the Iraqi Security Forces. Hun-dreds of other civilians have been killed in anti-ISISairstrikes carried out by members of the interna-tional coalition, by the Syrian Air Force, and morerecently by Russian forces, among others.

Given that both the international legal justifica-tion, and the strategic rationale, for internationalcoalition airstrikes hinge on the collective self-de-fence of Iraq and the support of the Iraqi govern-ment, there is a serious failure to take anycollective responsibility for the unacceptablerates of civilian casualties. Intelligence from Iraqiand Kurdish forces on the ground is used to in-form the targeting of international coalitionstrikes, and military training, intelligence andequipment, including American F16 fighter air-craft, are supplied by members of the coalition toIraqi forces. However, individual members of thecoalition will not accept responsibility for the ef-fects of attacks that are not carried out undertheir own command and control. At the same timethey may decline to confirm which specific at-tacks they did control, effectively hiding behind ascreen of non-attribution.

With the proliferation of armed actors and thedifficulties in attributing authorship of specificattacks, there are now indications that sections ofthe Iraqi public, particularly in areas controlledby ISIS, are blaming the US and other membersof the international coalition for civilian casual-ties even if they result from attacks by the IraqiSecurity Forces.

Failures in transparency by the internationalcoalition represent a marked deterioration fromrecent practice in other conflicts. Following re-peated incidents of civilian collateral damagefrom targeting errors in Afghanistan, and publiccriticism from the Afghan government, the Inter-national Security Assistance Force in Afghanistanestablished in late 2008 a civilian casualty track-


14

ing cell in an attempt to ‘demonstrate proportion-ality, restraint and utmost discrimination in theuse of firepower’. The aim was to ‘acknowledgecivilian casualties immediately and transparentlyinvestigate allegations rapidly’. The establishmentof a similar tracking cell by the Combined JointTask Force – Operation Inherent Resolve shouldnow be considered an urgent priority.

It is recommended that:

• All credible allegations of civilian casualtiesshould be subject to an effective, prompt,thorough and impartial investigation, andthe results made transparent, with a view tosuppressing breaches of international hu-manitarian law and violations of humanrights and securing reparation for victimsand their families;

• All parties to the conflict should communicateinformation regarding the identity of the deadand the missing including, where relevant, thecause of death, in furtherance of the right offamilies to know the fate of their relatives;

• All parties to the conflict should abide at alltimes by international humanitarian law andinternational human rights law. The interna-tional coalition should seek to ensure thatboth its individual members, and the Iraqi Se-curity Forces it supports, prohibit attacks tar-geted at civilians or civilian objects, prohibitindiscriminate attacks and take all feasibleprecautions to avoid or at least minimise civil-ian death or injury;

• Any decision to undertake further military ac-tion should put in place adequate mechanismsto monitor and evaluate the action accordingto its effect on the civilian population.


1 Eg. ‘Iraq reports 4 million cases of rights abusesby ISIL’, Press TV, 2 July 2015, reporting a pressconference given by the Iraqi human rightsminister. http://www.presstv.ir/Video/2015/07/02/418482/Middle-East-Iraq-ISIL-Mohammad-Mahdi-alBayati-UNAMI-Zeid-Raad-alHussein

2 UN General Assembly, Basic Principles andGuidelines on the Right to a Remedy andReparation for Victims of Gross Violations ofInternational Human Rights Law and SeriousViolations of International Humanitarian Law, UNDoc. A/RES/60/147, 16 December 2005, para 3(b).

3 See White House, Office of the Press Secretary,Text of a letter from the President to the Speakerof the House of Representatives and thePresident pro tempore of the Senate, 23September 2014. The 20 September letter fromIraq to the UN Security Council is annexed.

4 Iraq Body Count database; seewww.iraqbodycount.org

5 www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Jan-22/244941-iraq-air-strikes-kill-50-militants-in-anbar-ministry.ashx#axzz2oNa3sbT8

6 IBC database.7 www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/27/iraq-government

-attacking-fallujah-hospital8 www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/22/iraq-civilian-toll

-government-airstrikes9 www.uniraq.org/index.php?option=com_

k2&view=item&id=2300:un-casualty-figures

-for-july-2014-anbar-province-excluded&Itemid=633&lang=en

10 Id.11 www.uniraq.org/index.php?option=com

_k2&view=itemlist&layout=category&task=category&id=164&Itemid=650&lang=en&limitstart=6 . www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IQ/UNAMI_OHCHR_POC_Report _FINAL_6July_10September2014.pdf

12 www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IQ/UNAMI_OHCHR_Sep_Dec_2014.pdf

13 Id.14 Figures calculated from UNAMI reports for

months July-December 2014. See eg.www.uniraq.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2963:casualty-figures-for-november-2014&Itemid=633&lang=en,http://www.uniraq.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3141:un-casualty-figures-for-december-2014-deadliest-since-2008-in-iraq &Itemid=633&lang=en

15 http://theaviationist.com/tag/iraqi-air-force/16 www.washingtonpost.com/world/2014/06/27/

be172f43-cf98-4677-8e6d-4d64a5ae5e1d_story.html17 www.wsj.com/articles/at-least-five-people-killed

-when-iraqi-air-force-plane-accidently-drops-bomb-1436193351

18 www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-2563362919 www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/

qassim-suleimani-iraq-iran-syria

Endnotes

15

20 www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-2812568721 www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-3030472322 www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IQ/

UNAMI_OHCHR_POC_Report_FINAL_6July_10September2014.pdf

23 www.alaraby.co.uk/politics/2015/8/10/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81-%D9%8A%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%84-225%D9%85%D8%AF%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B0%D8%A8%D8%AF%D8%A1%D8%B9%D9%85%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%87-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9

24 www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/world/middleeast/with-isis-in-crosshairs-us-holds-back-to-protect-civilians.html?_r=0

25 http://ekurd.net/iraq-f16-strikes-islamic-state-2015-09-07

26 www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-2226142227 www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/

2013/04/201342410811252501.html28 http://kirkuknow.com/arabic/?s=%D8%B6%

D8%AD%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A7+%D9%85%D8%AF%D9%86%D9%8A%D9%8A%D9%86&x=6&y=5

29 See Airwars database at http://airwars.org/civcas-2015

30 News Transcript, Dept of Defense Press Briefing,5 June 2015. www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/607056

31 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/06/04/uk-mideast-crisis-idUKKBN0OK27A20150604

32 Al-Mada, 10 September 2014;www.kululiraq.com/?p=40889

33 Eg. www.alsharqiya.com/?p=158317 ; 2 April 2015.34 www.aljazeera.net/programs/behindthenews/

2015/7/5/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%84%D9%88%D8%AC%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8B%5%D8%B9%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%B0%D8%B1-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%A3

35 www.aljazeera.net/news/arabic/2015/7/7/%D9%82%D8%B5%D9%81-%D9%84%D9%84%D9%81%D9%84%D9%88%D8%AC%D8%A9-%D9%88%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%83-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%86%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%88%D8%B5%D9% 84%D8%A7%D8%AD-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF %D9%8A%D9%86

36 http://ninanews.com/News_Details.aspx?i1wmPLAYXH6sZ3Glh9QmLQ%253d%253d ; 2 June 2015.

37 www.alsumaria.tv/news/13955338 See Quilliam Foundation, Documenting the Virtual

Caliphate, 2015, pp 22-24. 39 Violations Documentation Center, The Use of

Barrel Bombs in Syria, 26 June 2015http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/reports/

1435353368#.VcIKNEXhWUc40 Violations Documentation Center, The Monthly

Statistical Report on Victims, May 2015 www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/reports/1433810787#.VcIlmEXhWUc

41 Violations Documentation Center in Syriadatabase, http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/martyrs

42 www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/syrian-jets-hammer-islamic-state-stronghold-2014817193245769730.html

43 Violations Documentation Center in Syria, FlashReport about Tuesday and Thursday’s Massacre inRaqqa 25-27 November: Horrific IndiscriminateAttacks against Civilians, November 2014

44 Abu Ibrahim Raqqawi, ‘Russia lied about targetingISIS’, 20 October 2015, www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=1515

45 The report also states that 1,809 civilians,including 76 children and 93 women, were‘executed’ in various ways by ISIS since itdeclared its caliphate at the end of June 2014. www.syriahr.com/en/2015/07/10-months-old-air-strikes-killed-over-3000-militants-172-civilians-in-syria

46 Id.47 See www.iraqpressagency.com/?p=132984&lang=ar48

www.alaraby.co.uk/society/2015/5/25/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%84%D9%88%D8%AC%D8%A9-%D9%83%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82

49 Iraq 2014: Civilian deaths almost doubling yearon year – An overview of the year’s violence,January 1, 2015 www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2014

50 Id.51 See www.airwars.org See also http://airwars.org/

wp-content/uploads/2015/08/airwars-cause-for-concern-civilians-killed-by-coalition.pdf

52 For two examples of the latter, see Airwars,Cause for Concern, pp 22-23.

53 Ibid. p.554 Ibid. p.1755 www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle

-east/us-led-air-strikes-on-isis-likely-to-have-killed-hundreds-of-civilians-says-independent-monitoring-group-10435040.html

56 http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/03/pentagon-in-denial-about-civilian-casualties-of-u-s-airstrikes-in-iraq-and-syria

57 http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-exempts-syria-airstrikes-from-tight-standards-on-civilian-deaths-183724795.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory

58 See COMISAF Tactical Directive, HQ ISAF/COM/08.



Over 4,000 civilians have been killed in the anti-ISIS bombing cam-paigns in Iraq and Syria during 2014 – 2015, according to availablemonitoring information based on credible local sources. The major-ity of these deaths, over 2,800, resulted from often indiscriminatebombardment by the Iraqi Security Forces. Hundreds of other civil-ians have been killed in anti-ISIS airstrikes carried out by membersof the US-led international coalition, by the Syrian Air Force, andmore recently by Russian forces, among others.

Civilian populations in Fallujah and other cities in western andnorthern Iraq, and in Raqqa, Aleppo and other areas of eastern andnorthern Syria, have been subjected to an unremitting and often in-discriminate bombardment, including the use of barrel bombs, thathas left residential areas destroyed and caused extensive damageto schools, hospitals and mosques.

The international coalition is conducting airstrikes in both Iraq andSyria in support of the Iraqi government's struggle against ISIS andcites the collective self-defence of Iraq as the primary justificationfor its use of force under international law. Intelligence from Iraqisecurity forces on the ground is used to inform the targeting of in-ternational coalition strikes, and military training, intelligence andequipment, including American F16 fighter aircraft, are supplied bymembers of the coalition to Iraqi forces. Under the circumstances,

there is a serious failure to take any collective responsibility for theunacceptable rates of civilian casualties.

The prevention of future civilian casualties is being impeded by thefailure by all parties to the conflict to acknowledge civilian deathsand investigate them transparently. In respect of the internationalcoalition, failures in transparency represent a marked deteriorationfrom recent practice in other conflicts.

This report recommends:● All credible allegations of civilian casualties should be subject

to an effective, prompt, thorough and impartial investigation,and the results made transparent, with a view to suppressingbreaches of international humanitarian law and violations ofhuman rights and securing reparation for victims and theirfamilies;

● The international coalition should seek to ensure that both itsindividual members, and the Iraqi Security Forces it supports,prohibit attacks targeted at civilians or civilian objects, pro-hibit indiscriminate attacks and take all feasible precautionsto avoid or at least minimise civilian death or injury;

● Any decision to undertake further military action should putin place adequate mechanisms to monitor and evaluate theaction according to its effect on the civilian population.

In brief

Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights and Minority Rights Group International54 Commercial Street, London E1 6LT, United [email protected] | www.minorityrights.org/ceasefire

This report has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of the publishersand can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.