The U.S. military has more than one pot to draw from for the program. The most common source of funds is the Commander’s Emergency Response Program. A 2009 CERP manual states that condolence payments are not compensation for loss but “can be paid to express sympathy and to provide urgent humanitarian relief.” For most Kunduz…
The United States government has been using drones as a weaponized platform since at least February of 2002, when the Central Intelligence Agency launched a Hellfire missile from a Predator drone, killing neither Osama bin Laden—the presumed target—nor any militants, but rather four civilian men scouring an abandoned military base for scrap metal. This intelligence failure was…
By Natasha Hall Since their start at the end of September 2015, Russian air strikes have displaced over a quarter million Syrians. According to Amnesty International, civilian harm attributable to Russia is on the rise. “We ran for our lives. We didn’t get to take anything with us. No blankets, nothing,” said Fatima, who fled Kafr…
By Natasha Hall In last week’s Republican presidential debate, we heard all about saturation bombing and destroying the Islamic State group. Republican contender Sen. Ted Cruz recently proffered his opinion that we should “carpet bomb ISIS into oblivion.” In the past two weeks, a 34-nation Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism was announced, President Barack…
By Federico Borello and Christina Asquith U.S. President Barack Obama’s apology for the horrific U.S. airstrikes in Kunduz, Afghanistan was an important and necessary response to the global outrage sparked after the U.S. military bombed a Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital October 3, killing 22 Afghans including doctors and nurses. Whatever really happened in Kunduz, a city…
Article by Nicolette Boehland, Harvard Law Fellow at CIVIC. “What I think is that there is no line at all … Civilians can turn into fighters at any time. Anybody can change from a fighter to a civilian, all in one day, all in one moment.” I remember pausing when I heard this assertion. It…
Yemenis must have sighed with relief when, on April 21, the Saudi government announced they would end their air campaign against the Houthi rebels. In a bit more than a month, the strikes have reportedly killed 1,000 civilians and injured many thousands more. Facing mounting criticism of the high civilian toll, Saudis abruptly renamed the…
But unmentioned in all the the stories of military triumphs is a problem that Western officials behind the campaign to defeat the Islamic State tend to downplay: civilian casualties… …Sahr Muhammedally, senior program manager for the Middle East Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), a nongovernmental agency that works to prevent civilian casualties, says that…
On Monday, a coalition airstrike allegedly struck a camp for displaced Yemenis. Human Rights Watch said the attack “heightened concerns” that Saudi Arabia and its partners were not sufficiently protecting civilians.“The policy needs to come from the top – from Saudi political and military leadership – that protecting civilians is a priority. That then stretches down the chain of command,”…