US airstrikes and operations by the US-led coalition killed or wounded at least 3,336 civilians in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Somalia between 2007 and May 2025, according to an investigation supported by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ).
The investigation analyzed 884 air operations using data from civilian casualty monitor Airwars, excluding disputed or unclassifiable incidents and using the lowest documented casualty estimates.
Syria recorded the highest civilian toll, with 1,336 people killed or wounded, followed by Yemen with 991, Iraq with 793, and Somalia with 216.
Attacks against Islamic State produced the largest total civilian toll among the armed groups examined, while nighttime and early-morning operations were associated with particularly heavy civilian losses.
Children Killed
Children accounted for 1,286 documented casualties, or 42 percent, meaning that nearly one in every two victims was a child.
International law provides children with two layers of protection: special safeguards as vulnerable civilians and prohibitions on their involvement in hostilities.
Legal Agenda researcher Nour Kelzi said the high proportion of child casualties raised serious questions about compliance with the laws of war.
While the figures alone do not establish unlawful attacks, she said they could provide evidence of indiscriminate or disproportionate strikes when assessed alongside targeting intelligence, weapons used, and precautions taken.
Two Civilians for Every Combatant
During the opening months of US President Donald Trump’s second term, 2.3 civilians were killed for every combatant killed in the air operations analyzed by the investigation.
That was the highest ratio recorded across the presidencies covered by the analysis, which runs through May 2025.
The investigation attributes the civilian toll to US policies governing strike authorization and the level of civilian harm commanders are permitted to accept.
It found that nighttime strikes caused the highest proportion of civilian casualties compared with other times of day.
Former Pentagon civilian protection official Wes Bryant said airstrikes often accompany ground operations conducted overnight or at dawn.
At those hours, an intended target may be easier to locate at home, where children and other family members are also present.
The same circumstances that help forces find a target can therefore expose an entire household to attack.
Bryant said failures to detect those civilians contributed to many deaths.
Concealing the US Role in Yemen
The investigation revisited a December 2009 US strike targeting suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Al-Ma’jalah, in Yemen’s southern Abyan governorate.
A Yemeni parliamentary fact-finding committee recorded 41 civilian deaths and 14 Al-Qaeda fighters killed.
It also found that the principal suspect moved freely in the area and could have been arrested through conventional law enforcement.
Washington’s involvement was concealed, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable describing how the Yemeni government agreed to claim that its forces had fired the American-made munitions.
Among those killed in the attack were 14 members of the Galgala family, whose three tents in the Bedouin settlement of Al-Shabaka were struck by five missiles and cluster bombs. Fatima, then 13, was the family’s sole survivor.
Before the strikes, “Fatima had no idea that hours earlier, a decision had been made in the White House over who in those three tents would live and who would die,” stated ARIJ.
“Fatima spent three months in a Jordanian hospital in a coma and in shock, as her body relearned the most basic functions of life: breathing, opening her eyes, and just surviving.”
“When she returned to Yemen, there was no home to go back to, no family waiting for her, only memories of pain and loss, and the question no one could answer: why?”