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HOME OF SALAM
AL-ODEH
Location: Downtown Qaiyara
Date: March 19, 2016
Military target designation: “Known ISIS weapons cache”
A local informant reported an ISIS mortar in a nearby rail yard. The mortar was gone when an airstrike hit the homes of Salam al-Odeh and Aaz-Aldin Muhammad Alwan. Salam’s wife, Harbia, managed to reach the hospital and tell her relative what happen before she died. Soon her son Musab died of his wounds, too. Of the eight people living in the two homes, only 2-year-old Rawa survived.
Toll: 7 Civilian Deaths
HOME OF RAFI AL-IRAQI
Location: Al-Zirai, eastern Mosul
Date: January 6, 2017
Military target designation: “Known ISIS HQ facility”
In early 2016, an ISIS patrol forced its way into the home of Rafi al-Iraqi demanding the family’s cell phones from Sama (right), his 10-year-old daughter. Rafi and his wife were arrested and interrogated. When he was released and inquired about his wife, he was told, “We’ll bring her to you.” Not long after, the family received her bullet-riddled body. A year later an airstrike leveled Rafi’s house and two others next door. Only Rafi, his mother and his 12-year-old son, Mohammed (far left), survived.”
Toll: 16 Civilian Deaths
“U.S. and coalition forces work very hard to be precise in airstrikes [and] are conducting one of the most precise air campaigns in military history.”
-Maj. Shane Huff, a spokesman for the Central Command
Civilians killed in 1 out OF 5 airstrikes
Investigators find that military underestimates the number of “surgical” airstrikes, causing civilian deaths by a factor of 35
Using data collected from the air since August 2014, military analysts claimed only one civilian was killed out of every 157 strikes through more than 27,500 airstrikes in Syria and Iraq by U.S. and coalition forces to dislodge ISIS fighters. Forces deployed everything from Vietnam-era B-52 bombers to modern Predator drones in these attacks.
But an 18-month investigation that examined bomb sites and interviewed survivors, found the military had grossly underestimated the number of civilian casualties. Investigators on the ground found that one out of every five strikes resulted in casualties, nearly 31 times higher than military’s one of every 157 strikes estimates. Their work is the first systematic, ground-based sample of airstrikes in Iraq since this latest military action began.
The investigators found that prior to an attack, the burden of proof had been on innocent civilians to demonstrate by their everyday behaviors to a drone watching them from above that they were civilians. They were essentially guilty until proven innocent.
– Azmat Khan is an investigative journalist and Anand Gopal, a professor at Arizona State. They published their findings in the New York Times
Sources:
– Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal, The Uncounted, New York Magazine