- A Look at Civilian Victims of the US Bombing (December 12, 2001)
...... - Iraq Civilian Body Count Surpasses 6,000 (July 9, 2003)
... "Both the U.S. & the U.K. said they were taking every effort to minimise civilian casualties and talked a lot about smart, precision weapons," IBC researcher John Slob... - Politics Overshadow Horror of Iraqi Bomb Victims (February 17, 2003)
...sibly weeks or less away, the bombing stands as a reminder of the risks of civilian casualties even with such accurate firepower: Mr. Saad lost his wife, his daughter an... - Status Report on War in Afghanistan (March 29, 2002)
...... - 3,240 Civilian Deaths in Iraq, Tally Concludes (June 10, 2003)
...ed — is sure to be significantly higher. Several surveys have looked at civilian casualties within Baghdad, but the AP tally is the first attempt to gauge the scale o... - Monitors to Track Civilian Deaths (July 3, 2003)
...r Global Exchange yesterday. The aim will be to provide a running total of civilian casualties. He said that six members of the organisation were already in Iraq. Op... - US Military: "We Will Destroy This Cleric's Army" (April 8, 2004)
...sing more force against the cleric and his followers could lead to greater civilian casualties and bolster his support. "Iraq could refrain from pursuing the arrest... - Gulf War Cost 158,000 Lives, Researcher's Job (January 5, 2003)
...gy is portrayed as a liberation of Iraq, and if there is a large number of civilian casualties it will be difficult to maintain that image." Some independent analysts... - Human-Rights Group to Estimate Civilians Killed in War (February 8, 2002)
...ally improving, the Pentagon is facing closer scrutiny about the extent of civilian casualties reported since American bombs started falling in October. Human Rights... - US Has No Plans to Count Civilian Casualties (April 15, 2003)
...BBC interview Sunday. Historically, the Pentagon has not tried to count civilian casualties and losses resulting from U.S. military action. Military officials have gi... - The Human Cost of War (July 9, 2002)
... Her demands were simple: an investigation into all the reported cases of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and for the U.S. government to set up a trust fund to assis... - More than 1,100 Civilians Dead from Iraqi War – Possibly Many More (May 4, 2003)
...cture." American officials have always said that they hoped to minimize civilian casualties, and in the days before U.S. troops moved north out of Kuwait, most troops... - Afghan Villagers 'Killed in American Bombing Raids' (February 13, 2003)
...onel Roger King, a US military spokesman, said he had no information about civilian casualties. If the account of civilian deaths proves accurate it would mark one... - 'Scores of Civilians' Killed in Falluja (November 9, 2004)
...s entrenched at Falluja Hospital and accused doctors there of exaggerating civilian casualties. Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at Falluja Hospital, said the city was runni... - US Bombing Kills at Least 30 at Afghan Wedding (July 1, 2002)
...t. We don't know where it fell," Davis said. "We are aware of reports of civilian casualties but don't know if casualties were caused as a result of the bomb." Th...
Civilian casualties
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Civilian casualties is a military term describing civilian, non-combatant persons killed or injured by direct military action.
Such military action may or may not have targeted civilians directly, and may or may not have had the purpose of causing civilian casualties.
One example of unintended civilian casualties is when an aircraft targets a bridge with a missile, then lauches the missile, and the pilot realizes that a bus full of women and children is driving onto the bridge. The bridge explodes, collapses, and the bus and its occupants are destroyed.
Other kinds of civilian casualties may involve the bombing of military productions centers and their supporting civilian centers (see WWII Allied bombing of German cities). A more complicated example of civilian casualties involves the targeting of combatants who are using civilians as human shields. This causes a lot of moral wrangling among professional armies, either because of their aversions to targeting civilians, or because of the negative propaganda value of such casualties.
When a military action has for sole purpose the killing of civilians, such action is generally termed an atrocity, and is prosecutable as a war crime. Professional armies do not, as a matter of policies, commit such acts. However, some members of such armies do on occasion, under the stress of the moment, and are sometimes dealt with harshly.
Targeting civilians with military forces generally results in strong and vociferous international condemnation.
The United States military has historically been willing to attack civilian targets if it will suit its military objectives. During World War II, the US participated in the bombing of Dresden in World War II, the firebombing of Tokyo, and even used the atomic bomb against two enemy cities (the only nation in the world to do so). Similar bombings of civilian targets occurred during the Gulf War. See Strategic bombing for more information. The negative propaganda value of such bombing campaigns, however, has let US to tout its so-called "smart munitions" and its more accurate targeting systems, which create fewer civilian casualties than previous bombing technologies. However, civilian casualties still result from such bombing campaigns.
Another type of civilian casualties is accidental targeting, generally because of stray munition (missiles, small arms fire) or inaccurate targeting (bombs, artillery shells).
Humanitarian aid workers are given special protections under international humanitarian law, and yet attacks on them still occur.
See also: Collateral damage