Action on Armed Violence

Last updated
Action on Armed Violence (AOAV)
Action on Armed Violence Logo.jpg
Type Non-profit NGO
Focus Human rights, activism
Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Productnonprofit human rights advocacy
Key people
 Iain Overton
Website aoav.org.uk

Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) is a London-based charity, conducting research and advocacy on the incidence and impact of global armed violence.

Contents

Iain Overton, an investigative journalist and author, [1] is the Executive Director of the organisation. [2]

AOAV's research and advocacy work is focused on global armed violence, with a specialisation in explosive weapons. [3] One of the charity's core functions is its Explosive Violence Monitor. [4] This monitor has been cited by organisations such as Reuters, [5] The Guardian , [6] Al Jazeera, [3] Human Rights Watch, [7] and the United Nations. [8]

Conflict casualty data

In December 2020, AOAV's data was reported in The Guardian as showing that British soldiers were 12% more likely to have been killed than their American counterparts during the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a study of casualty figures. The research – intended as a lessons learned exercise – also concluded that UK forces were 26% more likely to have been killed by improvised explosives, validating longstanding complaints about the poorly armoured Snatch Land Rover. [9]

In May 2021, AOAV's explosive violence data was also reported in The Guardian as showing that "Civilians accounted for 91% of those killed or injured by explosive weapons in populated areas worldwide over the last 10 years – a total of 238,892 people – according to a study of thousands of incidents." [10]

Recording civilian harm

In March 2019, AOAV was reported by the BBC as finding out that the RAF killed or injured 4,315 enemy fighters in Iraq and Syria between September 2014 and January 2019. The UK's Ministry of Defence had said only one civilian was killed in the airstrikes, according to figures released to the charity. Of those harmed, 4,013, or 93%, were killed, and 302, or 7%, were injured. Yet the MoD says only one civilian was killed in the airstrikes, raising concerns about how many civilians killed the MOD in the UK records. [11]

In April 2021, AOAV was reported by The Independent as finding out that Black people are three times more likely to be killed on the streets of London than other ethnic groups. Almost half of all murder victims in the capital in 2019 were Black despite them making up only 13 per cent of the city’s population. [12]

In May 2021, AOAV was reported by Al Jazeera as finding out that between 2016 and 2020, 40 percent of all civilian air strike casualties in Afghanistan were children. AOAV had reported that, of the 3,977 casualties caused over five years, 1,598 were children killed or wounded in attacks from the air. Civilian casualties resulting from air strikes by the Afghan Air Force during the first six months of 2020 had tripled compared to the same time period in 2019. [13]

Monitoring the arms trade

In August 2016, The New York Times cited AOAV's research into 14 years’ worth of Pentagon contract information related to weapons supplied to American troops and for their partners and proxies. AOAV found the Pentagon provided more than 1.45 million firearms to various security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, including more than 978,000 assault rifles, 266,000 pistols and almost 112,000 machine guns. [14]

In January 2021, The Guardian cited [15] AOAV's research on the UK government's approval of exports between January 2015 and June 2020 to countries listed by the Department for International Trade as 'subject to arms embargo, trade sanctions and other trade restrictions'. [16] AOAV found that Britain had approved exports of military items to 80% of the destinations on the list. AOAV also found that UK export licences for small arms and ammunition have been approved to 31 destinations on the embargoed and restricted list, including assault rifles, pistols, sniper rifles and shotguns. Many of these sent to areas that have recently suffered from violent conflicts or state oppression, including Kenya, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Togo, Oman, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Pakistan. [17]

Related Research Articles

Iraq Body Count project Web-based effort to chronicle casualties of the U.S. invasion and war in Iraq

Iraq Body Count project (IBC) is a web-based effort to record civilian deaths resulting from the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. Included are deaths attributable to coalition and insurgent military action, sectarian violence and criminal violence, which refers to excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion. As of February 2019, the IBC has recorded 183,249 – 205,785 civilian deaths. The IBC has a media-centered approach to counting and documenting the deaths. Other sources have provided differing estimates of deaths, some much higher. See Casualties of the Iraq War.

Casualties of the Iraq War Iraq war casualties

Estimates of the casualties from the Iraq War have come in several forms, and those estimates of different types of Iraq War casualties vary greatly.

Improvised explosive device Unconventionally produced bombs

An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechanism. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs, or homemade bombs.

Iraq War 2003–2011 war after an American-led invasion

The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 that began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States–led coalition which overthrew the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the coalition forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011. The United States became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition, and the insurgency and many dimensions of the armed conflict continue today. The invasion occurred as part of the George W. Bush administration's War on Terror following the September 11 attacks, despite there being no connection between the attacks and Iraq.

During the War in Afghanistan, according to the Costs of War Project the war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan; 46,319 civilians, 69,095 military and police and at least 52,893 opposition fighters. However, the death toll is possibly higher due to unaccounted deaths by "disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and/or other indirect consequences of the war." According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, the conflict killed 212,191 people.

Small Arms and Light Weapons Two classes of man-portable weapons

Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) refers in arms control protocols to two main classes of man-portable weapons.

The Iraq War documents leak is the disclosure to WikiLeaks of 391,832 United States Army field reports, also called the Iraq War Logs, of the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009 and published on the Internet on 22 October 2010. The files record 66,081 civilian deaths out of 109,000 recorded deaths. The leak resulted in the Iraq Body Count project adding 15,000 civilian deaths to their count, bringing their total to over 150,000, with roughly 80% of those civilians. It is the biggest leak in the military history of the United States, surpassing the Afghan War documents leak of 25 July 2010.

The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from January to April 2012, during which time the spate of protests that began in January 2011 lasted into another calendar year. An Arab League monitoring mission ended in failure as Syrian troops and anti-government militants continued to do battle across the country and the Syrian government prevented foreign observers from touring active battlefields, including besieged opposition strongholds. A United Nations-backed ceasefire brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan met a similar fate, with unarmed UN peacekeepers' movements tightly controlled by the government and fighting.

Iraqi insurgency (2011–2013) 2011-13 sectarian violence in Iraq following the US invasion and withdrawal

The Iraqi insurgency was an insurgency that began in late 2011 after the end of the Iraq War and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, resulting in violent conflict with the central government, as well as low-level sectarian violence among Iraq's religious groups.

A drone strike is an airstrike delivered by one or more unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) or weaponized commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Only the United States, Israel, China, Iran, Italy, India, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and Poland are known to have manufactured operational UCAVs as of 2019. As of 2022, the Ukrainian group Aerorozvidka have built strike-capable drones and used them in combat.

The 2013 Hawija clashes relate to a series of violent attacks within Iraq, as part of the 2012–2013 Iraqi protests and Iraqi insurgency post-U.S. withdrawal. On 23 April, an army raid against a protest encampment in the city of Hawija, west of Kirkuk, led to dozens of civilian deaths and the involvement of several insurgent groups in organized action against the government, leading to fears of a return to a wide-scale Sunni–Shia conflict within the country. By 27 April, more than 300 people were reported killed and scores more injured in one of the worst outbreaks of violence since the U.S. withdrawal in December 2011.

International military intervention against the Islamic State Military actions against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

In response to rapid territorial gains made by the Islamic State during the first half of 2014, and its universally condemned executions, reported human rights abuses and the fear of further spillovers of the Syrian Civil War, many states began to intervene against it in both the Syrian Civil War and the War in Iraq. Later, there were also minor interventions by some states against ISIL-affiliated groups in Nigeria and Libya.

American-led intervention in Iraq (2014–2021) Multi-national campaign

On 15 June 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered United States forces to be dispatched in response to the Northern Iraq offensive of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. At the invitation of the Iraqi government, American troops went to assess Iraqi forces and the threat posed by ISIL.

The persecution of Shia Muslims by the Islamic State refers to the persecution of Shia Muslims by the Islamic extremist group Islamic State (IS), which took place in Iraq,Syria, and other areas across the world.

During the Yemeni civil war, Saudi Arabia led an Arab coalition of nine nations from the Middle East and parts of Africa in response to calls from the internationally recognized pro-Saudi president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi for military support after he was ousted by the Houthi movement due to economic and political grievances, and fled to Saudi Arabia.

References

  1. ↑ "Pharmacies facing lateral flow test shortage due to 'supply chain issues' as Omicron spreads". inews.co.uk. 2021-12-20. Retrieved 2022-03-06.
  2. ↑ Jones, Murray (2020-10-07). "Sanitising War: How the UK Media Turned Its Back On Syria". Byline Times. Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  3. 1 2 Barbarani, Sofia. "US army data on civilian harm in war against ISIL questioned". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  4. ↑ "AOAV's Explosive Violence Monitor". AOAV. Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  5. ↑ Saraogi, Varsha (2018-01-08). "Civilian deaths from explosives surge in 2017 - campaign group". Reuters (in French). Retrieved 2020-12-02.[ dead link ]
  6. ↑ Norton-Taylor, Richard (2016-04-26). "Number of civilians killed or injured by explosives rises 50% in five years". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  7. ↑ "A Commitment to Civilians". Human Rights Watch. 2019-11-18. Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  8. ↑ "Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) – UNODA" . Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  9. ↑ "UK soldiers 12% more likely to die than US troops in 'war on terror'". Guardian. 2020-04-12. Retrieved 2020-12-08.
  10. ↑ "Explosive weapons used in cities kill civilians 91% of time, finds study". Guardian. 2021-05-25. Retrieved 2021-05-27.
  11. ↑ "RAF killed '4,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria'". BBC News. 2019-03-07. Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  12. ↑ "Black Londoners three times more likely to be murdered than other ethnic groups, figures show" . The Independent. 2021-04-12. Archived from the original on 2021-04-12. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  13. ↑ "Afghanistan: Nearly 1,600 child casualties in the past five years". Al Jazeera. 2021-05-07. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  14. ↑ Chivers, C. J. (2016-08-24). "How Many Guns Did the U.S. Lose Track of in Iraq and Afghanistan? Hundreds of Thousands. (Published 2016)". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  15. ↑ "UK sells arms to nearly 80% of countries under restrictions, says report". The Guardian. January 26, 2021.
  16. ↑ "Trade sanctions, arms embargoes, and other trade restrictions". gov.uk.
  17. ↑ "UK approves military exports to 80% of countries on own restricted list". January 26, 2021.
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