has waged air campaigns in other countries since 2001 as well, most notably Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen. Of those, most of them were killed by international forces - the U.S. Do you have a sense of how many civilians in Afghanistan were killed by airstrikes in the last 20 years?ĬRAWFORD: Well, over the last 20 years, about 5,900 civilians - at least the most recent numbers that we have, mostly provided by the United Nations.
Joining us now to break down some of these numbers and what they mean is Neta Crawford, co-director of the Cost of War Project (ph) at Brown University.įADEL: So let's start by putting this airstrike we just mentioned in context. Studies say as many as tens of thousands of innocent people may have been killed in strikes like these in the last 20 years.
This isn't the first time civilians have been killed in drone strikes under the broad banner of the war on terror. Last week, the Pentagon admitted an airstrike said to be targeting a would-be car bomber in Afghanistan actually killed only civilians - 10 people from the same extended family, including seven children.
