Fighting in densely populated areas poses a number of significant challenges to forces trying to adhere to the rules that govern warfare. Even assuming that international humanitarian law (IHL) is respected, the cumulative effect of urban warfare inevitably leads to human suffering. Nowhere is the tension between the military necessity to defeat an enemy and challenges in protecting civilians more apparent than in cities like Aleppo, Donetsk, Mosul, Raqqa, Sana, and Taiz.

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Author: Sahr Muhammedally

Sahr is CIVIC’s Director of MENA and South Asia. She has worked for over a decade in the fields of armed conflict, human rights, and counterterrorism in Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Syria. Prior to joining CIVIC, Sahr was a consultant with Human Rights Watch working on South Asia and Southeast Asia.