The 2026 Iran War
Minab and Baghdad: The Same Shape, Nineteen Years Apart
A van in 2007, a prayer hall in 2026. What the two events share, where they differ, and what the difference says about whether anything has…
Every article in the Collateral Murder archive
All 83 articles, newest first.
Every article in the Collateral Murder archive
83 articles on this page, each with its sources listed at the foot of it.
The 2026 Iran War
Who Was Responsible for the Minab Strike
A missile identified by its wings, a set of outdated coordinates, four independent investigations and a UN finding of war crimes. What has …
Collateral Killings in History
The Bombing of Dresden, 13 to 15 February 1945
A city centre destroyed in a firestorm, and a death toll that was inflated for decades by people with reasons to inflate it. The case that …
Collateral Killings in History
The Tokyo Firebombing, 9 to 10 March 1945
The deadliest air raid ever flown, five months before Hiroshima, using ordinary bombs. Barely remembered, and central to understanding the …
Collateral Killings in History
The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki, 9 August 1945
The second bomb, three days later, on a city that was not the intended target and was spared by weather that morning somewhere else.
Collateral Killings in History
The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, 6 August 1945
The largest death toll ever produced by one weapon in one moment, and the case that forces this index to admit a third category.
Collateral Killings in History
Bloody Sunday in Derry, 30 January 1972
Fourteen unarmed civilians killed at a march, an inquiry that cleared the soldiers within weeks, and a second inquiry thirty-eight years la…
The War Around It
Civilian Impact of Modern Warfare Explained
Why wars fought with precise weapons still kill large numbers of civilians, and why the answer has more to do with cities and information t…
The War Around It
Timeline of Key Events in the Iraq War
The war in outline, from the 2003 invasion to the 2011 withdrawal, with the points that matter for understanding one morning in July 2007.
Ethics and the Media
How War Footage Shapes Public Opinion
Written casualty figures change almost nobody's mind. Thirty seconds of video changes a great many. That gap is worth understanding, includ…
Collateral Killings in History
The Kabul Drone Strike, 29 August 2021
Ten members of one family, seven of them children, killed in a courtyard in the last days of the Afghan war. Called righteous, then admitte…
Collateral Killings in History
The Uruzgan Convoy Attack, 21 February 2010
A drone crew watching three vehicles for hours, an account of the passengers that kept changing, and 23 civilians dead by morning.
Collateral Killings in History
The Kunduz Hospital Airstrike, 3 October 2015
An hour-long attack on a trauma hospital whose coordinates the attackers had been given, and an inquiry that called it error rather than crime.
Collateral Killings in History
The Nisour Square Massacre, 16 September 2007
Seventeen civilians killed at a Baghdad traffic circle by private contractors, the rare case that produced convictions, and the pardon that…
Collateral Killings in History
The Haditha Killings, 19 November 2005
Twenty-four civilians killed in a few hours after a roadside bomb, reported as blast deaths, and a prosecution that ended with a pay cut.
Collateral Killings in History
The Amiriyah Shelter Bombing, 13 February 1991
Two precision bombs into a reinforced shelter full of families. The clearest case in this index of accurate weapons and a wrong judgement.
Collateral Killings in History
The No Gun Ri Massacre, July 1950
Refugees under a railway bridge in the first weeks of the Korean War, and a case that took half a century and a news agency investigation t…
The Incident
Myths and Misconceptions About the Video
The claims about this footage that do not survive contact with the record, from both directions, and what the accurate version says instead.
Collateral Killings in History
The My Lai Massacre, 16 March 1968
The killings that took a reporter eighteen months to bring to light, a helicopter crew to interrupt, and produced a single conviction serve…
Collateral Killings in History
The Biggest Collateral Killings in History
An index of the incidents people argue about when they argue about civilian deaths in war, what happened in each, and what became of the in…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Press Freedom After Collateral Murder
The release made newsrooms braver and more technical, and it made the legal ground under them far less stable. Both things happened at once.
The Incident
Sajad and Doaha: The Children in the Van
A boy of about ten and a girl of about five were in the front seat when the van was fired on. Both survived. Their father did not.
The 2026 Iran War
The 2026 Iran War: What Happened
The war opened on a Saturday morning in late February with strikes across Iran. Within two hours it had produced the atrocity it is now bes…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Reuters and the Three-Year Fight for the Footage
A global news agency lost two staff, asked to see the recording of how they died, and spent almost three years being told no. That refusal …
The Incident
Saleh Matasher Tomal: The Man Who Stopped
He was driving his two children across the district when he saw a wounded man in the road. He stopped. It is the simplest and hardest fact …
The 2026 Iran War
Double-Tap Strikes and the People Who Come to Help
A second strike, minutes after the first, on the place people gathered to pull others out. Why the pattern recurs, what the law says, and w…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
The Commutation and Release of Chelsea Manning
Three days before leaving office, President Obama cut almost all of a thirty-five-year sentence. What a commutation is, what it is not, and…
The Incident
Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry: The Soldiers on the Ground
The infantry company working the district that summer, the war it was having, and why its soldiers reached the van within minutes of it bei…
The 2026 Iran War
Counting the Dead at Minab
156 killed, 120 of them children. How that figure was arrived at, why the estimates of who was in the building differ, and what took seven …
Ethics and the Media
How Reuters and Other Newsrooms Reacted
Reuters had been asking for this recording for three years and learned what it showed from someone else's press conference. Other newsrooms…
The 2026 Iran War
Timeline of the Minab School Attack
Twenty minutes of attack, then seven months of investigation. The sequence of 28 February 2026 and everything that has followed it.
Whistleblowers and Journalists
The Manning Court-Martial: Verdict and Sentence
Three years after her arrest, a military judge convicted Chelsea Manning on most counts, acquitted her of the gravest, and sentenced her to…
The Incident
Crazyhorse 1-8: The Crew in the Aircraft
The callsign of the helicopter whose camera recorded everything. Who the crew were, why they have never been named, and why this archive do…
The 2026 Iran War
The Minab School Airstrike, 28 February 2026
Two missiles, minutes apart, on a school in southern Iran. The second hit the room where the survivors had been taken. This is what is esta…
Ethics and the Media
David Finkel's The Good Soldiers: The Book That Described It First
A reporter embedded with the same battalion published an account of this engagement in 2009, quoting the cockpit radio, while Reuters was s…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Adrian Lamo: The Man Who Turned Manning In
A former hacker became the person Chelsea Manning confided in, then handed the conversations to the authorities. He spent the rest of his l…
The Incident
The Army 15-6 Investigation into the Airstrike
The US Army examined this airstrike within weeks and cleared the crews. What that investigation was, what it looked at, and the questions i…
Courts and Consequences
The 2024 Plea Deal That Ended the Case
Fourteen years of litigation ended in a single day in a courtroom on a Pacific island, with a guilty plea, a sentence of time served, and a…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Josh Stieber and the Letter of Apology
He served in the same company in the same district and was not there that morning. In 2010 he co-wrote the only apology anyone involved has…
The Incident
The Rules of Engagement in Iraq in 2007
What a US aircrew was and was not allowed to do that year, where those rules come from, and why staying inside them is not the same as bein…
Courts and Consequences
The Espionage Act Charges Against Julian Assange
In 2019 the United States charged a publisher under a 1917 espionage law for obtaining and publishing classified material. That had never h…
The Incident
How Apache Gunsight Footage Works
The camera that made this recording was never meant to be watched by the public. Understanding what it can and cannot show explains most of…
Ethics and the Media
How to Check a Piece of War Footage
A practical method for anyone who sees a conflict clip and wants to know whether it shows what the caption says. It takes about ten minutes.
The Incident
New Baghdad: The District Where It Happened
Al-Amin al-Thaniyah was an ordinary crowded neighbourhood of shops, flats and side streets. Knowing what kind of place it was changes how t…
The War Around It
Iraq Body Count and How the Iraqi Dead Were Counted
Estimates of the civilian toll in Iraq range from around 200,000 to over a million. The range is not dishonesty. It is four different metho…
The War Around It
Baghdad in 2007 and the Surge
The airstrike happened in the worst year of the war, in the middle of a strategy that deliberately put American infantry inside neighbourho…
The Incident
The Missile Strike on the Building
The third and least examined engagement of that morning: three Hellfire missiles fired into a partly built block of flats, and a death toll…
WikiLeaks and the Release
The 38-Minute Video and the 17-Minute Edit
WikiLeaks published a full recording and a shorter captioned edit on the same day. Almost everyone watched the short one, and the differenc…
The Incident
The Strike on the Van
The hardest part of the footage to defend: a civilian vehicle stops to pick up a wounded man, and is fired on. What the law says about resc…
WikiLeaks and the Release
The National Press Club Release, 5 April 2010
A small organisation booked a room in Washington, played a US military video to the press, and changed what the public expected to be able …
The Incident
What Happened on 12 July 2007
The morning of the airstrike set out in order: who was in the district, why the helicopters were there, and how forty minutes went the way …
Courts and Consequences
Why Nobody Was Prosecuted Over the Airstrike
Two people went to prison in connection with this video and neither was in the helicopter. The reasons are structural rather than sinister,…
WikiLeaks and the Release
How WikiLeaks Decrypted and Released the Video
Between receiving an encrypted file and holding a press conference, a small group spent months decrypting it, checking it and sending peopl…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Namir Noor-Eldeen: The Photographer Who Was 22
By 22 he was one of the most-used photographers Reuters had in Iraq. He went out to cover fighting in his own city and never came back.
The War Around It
The Impact of the Iraq War on Civilians: Statistics and Stories
Displacement, infrastructure, medicine, schooling and grief. The casualty figures are the part of civilian impact that is easiest to count …
WikiLeaks and the Release
How Collateral Murder Influenced Digital Transparency and Government Secrecy
The release pushed hard on the door of government secrecy. The door held, but the shape of the argument about it changed permanently.
Courts and Consequences
Human Rights Organizations and Their Response to Collateral Murder
The major human rights and press-freedom bodies all reacted to the footage. What they asked for, what they got, and why their response ende…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Bradley (Chelsea) Manning: The Whistleblower Behind the Leak
A 22-year-old intelligence analyst at a base east of Baghdad found the video on a military network and decided the public should see it. Ev…
Ethics and the Media
The Ethics of Leaking Classified Military Footage
Not a legal question, an ethical one. When is it right to publish something a government has classified, and what test would tell you?
The War Around It
How the Iraq War Changed Modern Warfare: Lessons Learned
Not the tactics people expect. The lasting changes were about recording, watching and explaining, and this airstrike sits at the centre of …
WikiLeaks and the Release
WikiLeaks: A Force for Good or a National Security Threat?
Both descriptions have been used by serious people in good faith. Here is the strongest version of each, and the question that actually dec…
Ethics and the Media
Ethics in Warfare: Civilians as Collateral Damage
The phrase sounds like an excuse and is actually a legal category. Understanding what it does and does not permit is the difference between…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Protection of Journalists and Whistleblowers in War Zones
On paper both groups are protected. In practice the protection depends on being recognised, on someone enforcing it, and on a prosecutor wi…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
The Role of Whistleblowers in Exposing War Crimes
Almost everything the public knows about how wars are actually fought came from someone inside who decided to talk. The law offers them alm…
Courts and Consequences
Latest Update on Julian Assange: What’s Next for the WikiLeaks Founder?
The case is over and the questions it raised are not. Where things actually stand, and what is still unresolved.
Ethics and the Media
Wikileaks’ Influence on the Iraq War Public Opinion
Opinion on the war had already turned before 2010. What the releases changed was not whether people supported it but what they thought it c…
Ethics and the Media
Collateral Murder: Ethical Implications and Reactions
The footage raised four separate ethical questions and they keep getting mixed together. Taking them one at a time is the only way to get a…
Ethics and the Media
Collateral Murder: Media Coverage and Public Response
The footage led the news for about a week. Then the coverage changed subject, and the shift from the airstrike to the publisher is the most…
Courts and Consequences
The Legal Battles of Julian Assange: A Timeline
Fourteen years across four legal fronts, in three countries, over two entirely separate sets of allegations. Here it is in order.
WikiLeaks and the Release
The Legacy of Wikileaks in Modern Media
The organisation faded. Its methods did not. Almost every practice it introduced in 2010 is now ordinary newsroom equipment.
WikiLeaks and the Release
The Iraq War Diaries: Insights from Wikileaks
The field-report releases are often confused with one another. Here is what each set covered, what they showed, and why the second was hand…
WikiLeaks and the Release
The Iraq War Logs: What Wikileaks Revealed
Nearly four hundred thousand field reports from the Iraq war, published in October 2010. What they contained, and the one finding that coul…
WikiLeaks and the Release
Wikileaks and Its Global Impact: A Comprehensive Overview
One video in April 2010 was the start of a year that produced hundreds of thousands of documents and changed how several governments handle…
WikiLeaks and the Release
Julian Assange’s Influence on Digital Activism
The release did not invent online activism, but it demonstrated something new: that a handful of people with a server could put a governmen…
WikiLeaks and the Release
Julian Assange: Hero or Villain?
The question in the title is the wrong one, and the reason it is wrong explains most of what went strange about this case.
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Ethan McCord: From Soldier to Whistleblower
He was the soldier who opened the van and found two wounded children inside. What he did next, and what it cost him, is one of the few firs…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Saeed Chmagh and the Impact of War on Journalists
Iraq was the deadliest war for reporters ever recorded, and most of the dead were local staff. What that meant in practice, and what it sti…
Whistleblowers and Journalists
Saeed Chmagh: The Life and Legacy of a Reuter’s Journalist
He survived the first burst of gunfire. For several minutes he was alive at the kerb, and the footage of those minutes is the hardest part …
The Incident
The Aftermath of Collateral Murder: Military Reforms and Policies
What actually changed inside the US military after the video became public, what changed outside it, and how much of the reform people assu…
The Incident
An Analysis of Collateral Murder
A careful reading of what the footage does and does not show, phase by phase, and where the honest disagreements actually sit.
The Incident
Collateral Murder Primary Sources and Documents
The documents, reports and archives this whole site rests on, with a plain guide to which ones are worth your time and what each one can an…
The Incident
Timeline of Events
Every dated event in this story in order, from the surge that put American infantry in the district to the plea deal that closed the case s…
The Incident
Collateral Murder
The full story of the 2007 Baghdad airstrike and the leaked cockpit video that made the world watch it: what the footage shows, who died, a…
The same articles, grouped by topic
If you are working through a subject rather than browsing, this is the more useful order.
The Incident 17 articles
What happened in the sky and on the street in New Baghdad on 12 July 2007, phase by phase.
- Collateral Murder
- An Analysis of Collateral Murder
- Timeline of Events
- Collateral Murder Primary Sources and Documents
- What Happened on 12 July 2007
- The Strike on the Van
- The Missile Strike on the Building
- New Baghdad: The District Where It Happened
- How Apache Gunsight Footage Works
- The Rules of Engagement in Iraq in 2007
- The Army 15-6 Investigation into the Airstrike
- Crazyhorse 1-8: The Crew in the Aircraft
- Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry: The Soldiers on the Ground
- Saleh Matasher Tomal: The Man Who Stopped
- Sajad and Doaha: The Children in the Van
- The Aftermath of Collateral Murder: Military Reforms and Policies
- Myths and Misconceptions About the Video
Whistleblowers and Journalists 13 articles
The people who were killed doing journalism, and the people who risked everything to make the footage public.
- Namir Noor-Eldeen: The Photographer Who Was 22
- Saeed Chmagh: The Life and Legacy of a Reuter’s Journalist
- Saeed Chmagh and the Impact of War on Journalists
- Ethan McCord: From Soldier to Whistleblower
- Josh Stieber and the Letter of Apology
- Bradley (Chelsea) Manning: The Whistleblower Behind the Leak
- Adrian Lamo: The Man Who Turned Manning In
- The Manning Court-Martial: Verdict and Sentence
- The Commutation and Release of Chelsea Manning
- The Role of Whistleblowers in Exposing War Crimes
- Protection of Journalists and Whistleblowers in War Zones
- Reuters and the Three-Year Fight for the Footage
- Press Freedom After Collateral Murder
WikiLeaks and the Release 11 articles
How the footage got out, how it was published, and what it did to the idea of a government secret.
- How WikiLeaks Decrypted and Released the Video
- The National Press Club Release, 5 April 2010
- The 38-Minute Video and the 17-Minute Edit
- Julian Assange: Hero or Villain?
- Julian Assange’s Influence on Digital Activism
- Wikileaks and Its Global Impact: A Comprehensive Overview
- The Iraq War Logs: What Wikileaks Revealed
- The Iraq War Diaries: Insights from Wikileaks
- How Collateral Murder Influenced Digital Transparency and Government Secrecy
- WikiLeaks: A Force for Good or a National Security Threat?
- The Legacy of Wikileaks in Modern Media
Courts and Consequences 6 articles
Court-martials, indictments, extradition hearings and the question nobody has answered: who was held responsible?
- Why Nobody Was Prosecuted Over the Airstrike
- The Espionage Act Charges Against Julian Assange
- The 2024 Plea Deal That Ended the Case
- The Legal Battles of Julian Assange: A Timeline
- Latest Update on Julian Assange: What’s Next for the WikiLeaks Founder?
- Human Rights Organizations and Their Response to Collateral Murder
Ethics and the Media 9 articles
What a camera in a gunsight does to an audience, and what news organisations owe the people in the frame.
- How War Footage Shapes Public Opinion
- How to Check a Piece of War Footage
- Collateral Murder: Media Coverage and Public Response
- David Finkel's The Good Soldiers: The Book That Described It First
- How Reuters and Other Newsrooms Reacted
- The Ethics of Leaking Classified Military Footage
- Ethics in Warfare: Civilians as Collateral Damage
- Collateral Murder: Ethical Implications and Reactions
- Wikileaks’ Influence on the Iraq War Public Opinion
The War Around It 6 articles
Baghdad in 2007, the surge, the counting of the dead, and why one morning in one district looked the way it did.
- Baghdad in 2007 and the Surge
- Iraq Body Count and How the Iraqi Dead Were Counted
- Timeline of Key Events in the Iraq War
- The Impact of the Iraq War on Civilians: Statistics and Stories
- How the Iraq War Changed Modern Warfare: Lessons Learned
- Civilian Impact of Modern Warfare Explained
The 2026 Iran War 7 articles
The war that began on 28 February 2026, and the strike on a girls' school in Minab that became its defining atrocity.
- The Minab School Airstrike, 28 February 2026
- Timeline of the Minab School Attack
- Counting the Dead at Minab
- Double-Tap Strikes and the People Who Come to Help
- Who Was Responsible for the Minab Strike
- The 2026 Iran War: What Happened
- Minab and Baghdad: The Same Shape, Nineteen Years Apart
Collateral Killings in History 14 articles
The incidents that set the terms for how civilian deaths in war are counted, argued about and answered for.
- The Biggest Collateral Killings in History
- The My Lai Massacre, 16 March 1968
- The No Gun Ri Massacre, July 1950
- The Amiriyah Shelter Bombing, 13 February 1991
- The Haditha Killings, 19 November 2005
- The Nisour Square Massacre, 16 September 2007
- The Kunduz Hospital Airstrike, 3 October 2015
- The Uruzgan Convoy Attack, 21 February 2010
- The Kabul Drone Strike, 29 August 2021
- Bloody Sunday in Derry, 30 January 1972
- The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, 6 August 1945
- The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki, 9 August 1945
- The Tokyo Firebombing, 9 to 10 March 1945
- The Bombing of Dresden, 13 to 15 February 1945
