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All major publications from Airwars’ documentation, research, investigations and policy teams

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11 Jun, 2025
Collection
Somalia, Yemen

Trump under scrutiny

Collection page gathering crucial resources on military actions during the Trump second term, and the impact on civilians
3 Apr, 2025
Investigations, Policy
Yemen

What the chats signal about Trump’s Yemen bombing campaign

Ignore the leaked messages - Trump's campaign is far more deadly than Biden's
1 May, 2024
Policy, Research
Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen

Analysis: U.S. declares its military actions worldwide killed no civilians in 2022

The US declares its military actions in 2022 resulted in no civilians killed or injured. Airwars finds otherwise
1 May, 2024
Policy
Yemen

US-UK strikes in Yemen raise questions about commitments on civilian harm mitigation

Writing for Just Security, Airwars' Policy Specialist raises questions on US and UK commitments to civilian protection in Yemen
22 Jul, 2023
Research
Yemen

Methodology note: U.S. Forces in Yemen

How we're applying our methodology
17 May, 2023
Visualisation
Yemen

Reported civilian deaths from US Forces strikes in Yemen

Database tracks casualties in Yemen during US strikes
17 May, 2023
Visualisation
Yemen

Militant deaths per year in Yemen

The United States has predominantly targeted alleged fighters from two main terror networks operating in Yemen: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and Islamic State in Yemen. Following Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping routes and into Israel since 2023, US forces launched a series of major operations targeting Houthi personnel and infrastructure. While declared […]
1 Feb, 2023
Policy, Research
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen

US airstrikes fell to historic low in 2022, despite fresh operations

The overall number of declared US airstrikes across all monitored military theatres fell from 441 in 2021 to a minimum of 36 in 2022
29 Sep, 2022
Visualisation
Yemen

Declared and alleged US actions in Yemen

Chart shows publicly declared U.S. strikes vs unreported operations
27 Sep, 2022
Visualisation
Yemen

US Forces in Yemen Fatalities and Strikes Map

Mapping civilian casualties, militant casualties, and strike target and location
22 Dec, 2021
Investigations, Research
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen

How do the ‘forever wars’ look under President Biden?

Is President Biden really going to end the America's decades-long campaign?
2 Jun, 2021
Research
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen

Pentagon annual report declares 85 civilian deaths in recent US actions

The Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on civilian deaths and injuries resulting from US military actions around the world has declared more than 100 recent casualties. Researchers and human rights groups, including Airwars, Amnesty International and UN monitors in Afghanistan, place the actual toll significantly higher. For 2020 alone, the Department of Defence said that […]
8 Apr, 2021
Policy
Yemen

Mwatana blasts CENTCOM silence on civilians killed in Yemen

The Yemeni human rights group Mwatana has accused US Central Command of being “very disrespectful to victims”, after it emerged that CENTCOM has still not publicly responded to a major investigation into civilians killed by US airstrikes and ground raids. Given five months’ advance notice of the findings of the investigation, which comprehensively detailed the […]
2 Mar, 2021
Investigations, Policy
Yemen

US military blames “administrative mistake” after forgetting its troops killed Yemeni civilians

The US military has blamed an “administrative mistake” after conceding it forgot its own admission of the killing of up to 12 civilians during a raid on a Yemeni village in early 2017. Details of the admission feature in the Airwars annual report for 2020 which published March 2nd. The US military led a raid […]
28 Oct, 2020
Report, Research
Yemen

Trump in Yemen: New Airwars study shines light on opaque campaign

A new Airwars investigation into the ongoing US counterterrorism campaign in Yemen has identified at least 86 civilians likely killed by US actions during Donald Trump’s presidency – though the US military has admitted to no more than a dozen deaths. Eroding Transparency, researched and written by Mohammed al-Jumaily and Edward Ray, examines US air […]
9 Jul, 2020
Update
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Türkiye, Yemen

New UN report insists Soleimani assassination by US was ‘unlawful’

The US assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in Baghdad in January 2020, was unlawful on several counts, according to a new report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council by its expert on extrajudicial killings. Dr Agnes Callamard, the current UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions, […]
7 May, 2020
Policy
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen

Pentagon concedes 211 more civilian deaths across four war zones in latest report to Congress

The Department of Defense (DoD) informed Congress on May 6th that US forces in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Somalia had between them killed at least 132 civilians and injured 91 more during 2019. The Pentagon also reported a further 79 historical deaths from its actions in Syria and Iraq during 2017-18. The 22-page Annual Report […]
11 Feb, 2020
Policy
Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Türkiye, Yemen

Airwars annual report: over 2,200 civilians claimed killed in 2019

Airwars research shows that at least 2,214 civilians were locally alleged killed by international military actions across Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Somalia during 2019 – a 42% decrease in minimum claimed deaths on the previous year. This sharp fall was largely because deaths from reported US-led Coalition actions plummeted following the territorial defeat of ISIS […]
2 May, 2018
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

US mulls more secrecy on drones

The Trump administration is considering overturning a key Obama-era policy which sought to make counter-terrorism operations more transparent, even as it ramps them up. The announcement, given to the Bureau by the US National Security Council late on Tuesday night, offers one of the clearest indications yet of the administration’s differing stance of transparency in […]
16 Apr, 2018
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

A battle for transparency: putting names and numbers to the US drone war

This is an extract from the Bureau’s report, Naming The Dead, published in April 2018, written by Jack Serle The phenomenal assassination tool that is the attack drone was born of frustration – the inability of the US to kill Osama bin Laden. The CIA and its Afghan militia allies were pretty sure they knew […]
19 Jan, 2018
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Trump’s first year in numbers: Strikes triple in Yemen and Somalia

President Donald Trump launched at least 161 strikes in Yemen and Somalia during his first year in office, the Bureau’s latest figures show – more than triple the number carried out the year before. This means there were over 100 times more strikes in Yemen and more than 30 times as many strikes in Somalia […]
19 Dec, 2017
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

US counter terror air strikes double in Trump’s first year

The number of US air strikes jumped in Yemen and Somalia in 2017, pointing to an escalation of the global war on terror. President Donald Trump inherited the framework allowing US aircraft to hit suspected terrorists outside of declared battlefields from his predecessor, Barack Obama. Bar some tinkering, his administration has largely stuck within the framework set […]
25 Sep, 2017
Update
Somalia, Yemen

New tack for presenting data on Yemen and Somalia

The Bureau has decided to change how it presents its data on Yemen and Somalia to make our datasets more user-friendly. Our database records all reported US counter-terrorism operations in the two countries, dating back to November 2001 in Yemen and January 2007 in Somalia. Many of these were reported as drone strikes, whilst others […]
20 Jan, 2017
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

White House releases annual counterterrorism CIVCAS figures

The outgoing Obama administration said on Thursday the US had conducted 53 strikes outside areas of active hostilities in 2016, killing one non-combatant. This contrasts slightly with reports collated by the Bureau – we recorded 49 counter-terrorism strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan in 2016, killing four to six civilians. The White House began publishing casualty […]
19 Jan, 2017
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Trump, Obama and the future of targeted killing

Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy is often discussed in terms of things he didn’t do: intervene in Syria, reset with Russia, get out of Afghanistan. In one area however, Obama developed and expanded a defining policy architecture which his successor Donald Trump now inherits: the ability to kill suspected terrorists anywhere without US personnel having […]
17 Jan, 2017
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than Bush

There were ten times more air strikes in the covert war on terror during President Barack Obama’s presidency than under his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama embraced the US drone programme, overseeing more strikes in his first year than Bush carried out during his entire presidency. A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted […]
1 Jul, 2016
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

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

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 […]
1 Jul, 2016
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

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

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 […]
1 Dec, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

US drone war, November 2015: American troops in Afghanistan and Somalia supported by new strikes

Gen John Campbell, top US military officer in Afghanistan, admits human error behind the destruction of a hospital on October 3. US strikes continued in Afghanistan and Somalia last month. Strikes in both countries were carried out to counter a threat to US forces on the ground. There were no attacks reported in Pakistan, where the Pakistan […]
2 Nov, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

At least 80 US airstrikes hit Afghanistan in October: The White House’s covert drone and air war – monthly update

On October 3 a US airstrike destroyed MSF’s hospital in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan (Photo: Victor Blue/MSF)   Scores of US air and drone strikes hit Afghanistan in October as the country’s military and police continued struggling to control the resurgent Taliban. While at least 80 strikes reportedly hit Afghanistan, the CIA’s drone strikes stopped at […]