Civilian casualties from airstrikes by the US-led coalition fighting Isis have spiked in the past two months, activists and rights groups have warned, after the US said it was investigating a village bombing that appears to be one of the deadliest single air attacks on civilians of the entire war.
The rising toll from coalition bombs is alienating Syrians on the ground and risks undermining the fight against the extremists, critics say.
The US says its bombs have caused 55 civilian deaths since the coalition air war against Isis was launched two years ago. But campaign groups that keep a tally of the war’s civilian toll – including Amnesty and Airwars – say the real total is at least 10 times that number – and could be far higher.
During the recent battle for the strategic northern city of Manbij, launched in late May, there has been such a worrying surge in deaths that some groups fear US military commanders have loosened rules protecting civilians. The Pentagon denies any change to the rules of engagement.
“We tracked a huge increase in civilian deaths [from coalition airstrikes] in Syria in June above May, a rise of 72% from the previous month,” said Chris Woods, director of Airwars, who says at least 210 civilians were killed by coalition airstrikes in the battle for Manbij alone.
“Even back in early June, we were getting very bad reports and significant civilian casualties, so it is simply not credible for the coalition to suggest that they were unaware of this. This is a very big deal and it has been going on for a long time.”
A single attack on a village outside the city last week killed at least 74 named civilians, mostly women and children, and potentially more than 50 others, according to multiple observers. That makes the bombing of Tokhar village one of the deadliest single air assaults on civilians of the entire war.
The US military has launched a formal investigation into the bombing, but has not said how many deaths it is investigating.
It said late on Thursday that Manbij had been hit by another airstrike that “may have resulted in civilian casualties” in the previous 24 hours. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a major source of information on the plight of noncombatants, said 28 civilians had been killed.
The Violations Documentation Centre, which keeps a detailed public database of civilian deaths in the conflict, says 513 Syrian civilians have been killed by international coalition attacks since their aircraft joined the conflict.
It has not had “specific indications that civilian casualties from the coalition are increasing”, said spokesman Ashraf Hamzah, but is concerned they are not doing enough to protect civilians.
“The VDC is concerned about the coalition and their commitment to international humanitarian law, particularly in relation to the bombing on Tokhar village,” he said. “Most of the casualties are children and elderly and we consider that a failure for the international coalition.”
Overall Russian and regime air attacks have killed many more civilians than the coalition and they have also been accused of intentionally targeting homes and key infrastructure such as hospitals.
Moscow has not admitted a single civilian death caused by its actions in Syria.
But the coalition has the grim distinction of having launched at least three of the deadliest single air attacks of the war on civilians, said Amnesty’s researcher for the region, Neil Sammonds.
These high death tolls, and official reluctance to admit to or investigate many of the attacks, are damaging the US-led coalition’s moral credibility, he said.
“Levels of civilian killings from the coalition are so high now, we are edging towards the 1,000 figure, and they don’t disclose it, they are covering it up,” Sammonds said, adding that there had probably been more than 200 civilians killed during the fight for Manbij alone.
“Their investigations are not transparent and the ‘reasons’ for dismissing evidence seem weak,” he said. “They dismiss evidence pointing to civilian casualties if it hasn’t been captured from the sky by their own operatives, so even if there are photographs of scores and scores of dead bodies, with names, it’s still discounted.”
The civilian casualty figures from Syria are particularly credible, said Airwars’ Woods, because of well-trained and organised monitoring networks built up during the early years of the civil war.
“One of the reasons we took this so seriously, there were a lot of these groups here in the wake of the uprising against Assad, and they have survived in some form or another under [Isis] occupation,” Woods said.
He cited the case of an airstrike on a family home in Manbij a few days earlier, that sparked a public debate between two monitoring groups, and an apology and correction by one of them, reducing the death toll.
“They take enormous pride in getting it right. It is actually very difficult to pretend people have been killed because they get found out.”
His group puts civilian deaths from coalition attacks at over 1,500 across Iraq and Syria. Western jets are just one of many threats for civilians living under Isis, who have reported snipers picking off those trying to flee, and the use of locals as human shields, tactics that make them more vulnerable to coalition bombs.
As a result, the US should be making sure strict measures are in place to protect people on the ground during complex battles, said Wael Aleji, spokesman for the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
“The problem is that the air campaign is not targeting a regular army with clear rules of engagement,” said Aleji, who visited Washington earlier this month to discuss civilian casualty issues with officials at the state department.
“There are many armed parties involved on the ground and they have different agendas and motives. Some of them deliberately operate within residential areas and between civilians, this makes civilians more vulnerable.”
There has been limited western political or media focus on the deaths, and Amnesty’s Sammonds said that without popular pressure on western governments, there may be little incentive for the military to make stronger efforts to protect civilians.
“There doesn’t seem to be any political debate about the fact that coalition forces are killing so many civilians, or significant high-level media coverage of these victims,” Sammonds said.
“It’s not happening at all, yet all civilians should be protected and war crimes are war crimes whoever commits them. You need popular and well-placed pressure to try and change the policies and behaviour of big powers in war, without that seems very unlikely they will be held to account.”
