Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict

Every single image you take contains metadata – allowing you to know the exact time and location it was taken. In simple terms, metadata is information contained within the original copies of images or videos. The Role of Metadata in Civilian Casualty Assessment Reports government to accept responsibility when civilians are illegally targeted or killed during military operations. If the Defense Department plans to apply this standard going forward, it will be nearly impossible for the U.S. For the first time, our analysis found that one of the factors the reviewers cited in rejecting the allegation was the lack of metadata on images, including those of the burnt out car Barakat and his friends were in at the time of the strike. government uses to evaluate who it kills in war, and how those metrics may be changing.

The review ultimately concluded the men demonstrated “hostile intent” by failing to heed warning shots that were fired seconds before the strike.īut the document, which the Pentagon released to NPR after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, also revealed something significant – and deeply troubling – about the standards the U.S. Barakat lost an arm and his two friends died. troops targeted their van and hit it with airstrikes.

This was despite the extensive testimony to NPR of Barakat Barakat, a Syrian man who was travelling home from work with two friends when U.S.

and other military actions in conflicts across the globe – and concluded that no civilians were harmed in the raid. military took evidence provided by NPR and Airwars – the watchdog group I work for that monitors the civilian impact of U.S. military’s internal civilian casualty assessment for the 2019 raid in Idlib, Syria, that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict