Seeing Through the Rubble The civilian impact of the use of explosive weapons in the fight against ISIS. Airwars and PAX have strived to achieve the highest level of accuracy in this report, which is primarily based on desk research and publicly available sources of information. Because there was a lack of information available in the public domain on the civilian impact of explosive weapons use in Hawijah, semi-structured interviews via email were held with six different sources. Some of these sources have been anonymised in the report for security and operational reasons, at their request. All anonymised information in the report has been confirmed by at least two independent sources, unless indicated otherwise. We welcome comments, clarifications and additional information, in the spirit of dialogue and in the common search for accurate and reliable information on this important subject. If you believe you have found an inaccuracy in our report or if you can provide additional information, please contact us at
[email protected]. Authors Roos Boer (PAX) Laurie Treffers (Airwars) Chris Woods (Airwars) We would like to thank the following people for their contribution to the report: Saba Azeem, Laura Boillot, Dmytro Chupryna, Mohammed al Jumaily, Azmat Khan, Omar Mohammed, Donatella Rovera, Lex Runderkamp, Frank Slijper, Susi Snyder, Hugo Van Halder, Vincent Vrijhoef, Marjolein Wijninckx and Liesbeth Zegveld. Design by Tutaev Design Front Cover A March 2017 airstrike during the battle for Mosul against ISIS © Reuters/ Alaa Al-Marjani. PAX / Airwars ! Seeing Through the Rubble Table of Contents Introduction 4 1 Inherent Risks from the Use of Explosive Weapons in 6 Populated Areas 1.1 Explosive Weapons 6 1.2 Civilian Harm 8 1.3 The International Political Response 10 2 Fighting ISIS 11 2.1 The US-led Coalition: “Many Nations, One Mission”.