Table of Contents
- Key Findings
- Glossary of Belligerents
- Map of Territorial Control in Libya as of May 2018
- An Overview of the Air Campaigns in Libya since 2012
- The Conflicts in Libya 2011-2018
- The Jihadist Environment in Libya Today
- The U.S. Counterterrorism War and Libya
- Strikes by Libyan Belligerents: the GNA and the LNA
- Reported Strikes by France, Egypt and the UAE
- Conclusion
- Appendices
An Overview of the Air Campaigns in Libya since 2012
A poem about the “suffering” of Sirte, Libya, accompanied a photo of two dead children that Khaled Alkhwaildi uploaded to his Facebook page. Hamad al-Sayeh Hambali’s home was flattened by airstrikes on Zafaran, a district in eastern Sirte, on March 9, 2016, and local Facebook accounts like Alkhwaildi’s contained the only reporting of the incident. Hambali’s young daughters, Isra and Wafaa, lay side by side in the graphic photo, their Minnie Mouse and Hello Kitty pajamas dusted with rubble, one covered in a pool of blood.1
Photographic evidence shows that a strike occurred on Hambali’s home that day, but there were no Western media reports of the event, and no country or local militia claimed responsibility for the strike. The deaths of Hambali’s children weren’t acknowledged outside of social media.
This is characteristic of the aerial conflict in Libya. New America and Airwars have documented more than 2,000 airstrikes that were reportedly conducted between September 2012 and June 10, 2018 in Libya, which resulted in at least 242 civilian deaths using the low-end estimate, and as many as 395 civilian deaths using the high-end estimate.2
In 2011, during a national uprising in Libya, NATO intervened to protect civilians from the forces of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, a military action that significantly contributed to the regime’s defeat. Though the United Nations-sanctioned campaign ended on October 31, 2011, several countries and local militias have continued to conduct airstrikes and drone strikes intermittently with scant accountability.
New America and Airwars have documented more than 2,000 airstrikes that were reportedly conducted between September 2012 and June 10, 2018 in Libya, which resulted in at least 242 civilian deaths using the low-end estimate, and as many as 395 civilian deaths using the high-end estimate.
Some organizations have attempted to produce an accurate death toll of civilians in Libya and identify the responsible parties. However, a lack of reporting and self-reporting of strikes has enabled those responsible to go largely unnoticed. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) consistently provides figures for civilian casualties of the hostilities in Libya. However, according to its press releases, UNSMIL is usually unable to “determine with certainty” which parties contributed to the casualties, with the exception of the Libyan National Army.3 Human Rights Watch also reports casualties from “unidentified aircraft,” due to an inability to identify the country or militia group responsible. With some exceptions, no party typically claims responsibility for these airstrikes or their outcomes.
With the aid of a team of Libyan researchers, New America and Airwars have found 2,158 reported airstrikes in Libya from September 2012 to June 10, 2018. As outlined in the methodology section, those reports were collected from wide variety of sources. Because this study seeks to fill gaps in English-language reporting on civilian casualties in Libya, the vast majority of our sources are in Arabic.
Some of the strikes in the database include allegations of civilian casualties against the following parties: Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA), which is recognized by the United Nations; the Libyan National Army (LNA), a rival military force led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar; the air force of the first post-Gaddafi Libyan government, the General National Congress (GNC); as well as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, France and the United States.
Box 1
A Note on Methodology
For the purposes of this data collection project, we are an all-source monitor. When documenting potential civilian deaths from airstrikes, we draw upon a wide range of materials. These include reports from international and local news agencies and nongovernmental organizations, as well as social media sites such as local residents’ groups, Facebook pages, YouTube footage of incidents, and local tweets relating to specific events. This project seeks to fill gaps in English-language reporting on civilian casualties in Libya. As a result, the vast majority of our sources are in the Arabic language.
These individual sources and links are compiled into a large and evolving event archive on the Airwars website, and data sheets are available on both the New America and Airwars sites. In the data review process, the collated material received a grade from an English-language assessor to determine the likely credibility of the allegation.
Because of wide variations in the quality of casualty reporting, for this project we employed the following grading system for events alleging airstrikes with noncombatant victims:
- Confirmed: An international or local belligerent has accepted responsibility for the killing or injuring of noncombatants or allied forces in a particular incident.
- Fair: There is reporting of an alleged incident from two or more credible sources (often coupled with biographical, photographic and/or video evidence). Crucially, there are also well-reported military strikes in the near vicinity for the date in question. We believe these cases in particular require urgent investigation.
- Weak: There is reporting of an alleged incident from only one credible source. These often feature biographical details of victims along with photographic evidence from a reputable source. There are also reported airstrikes in the near vicinity for the date in question.
- Contested Events: Incidents that involve competing claims for the origins of a violent incident (i.e., aircraft from two different countries/forces are reported as responsible for a single attack).
- Discounted: Cases where our researchers or accused actors can demonstrate that those killed were in fact combatants, or that an incident likely did not result in any civilian casualties.