Civilian Targets

Examples of Civilian Targets in the following topics:

• The Balkans

  • However, after the 2nd Markale massacres carried out by Bosnian Serbs in August 28, 1995, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), led by the United States, launched Operation Deliberate Force with series of airstrikes against Bosnian Serb targets.
  • The strikes were not limited to military installations—civilian targets included factories, oil refineries, television stations, and various infrastructures.

• The Strategic Bombing of Europe

  • Strategic bombing often involved bombing areas inhabited by civilians and sometimes bombing campaigns were deliberately designed to target civilian populations in order to terrorize, disorganize, and disrupt their usual activities.
  • On May 15, one day after the German bombing of Rotterdam, the RAF was given permission to attack targets in the Ruhr Area, including oil plants and other civilian industrial targets that aided the German war effort, including  self-illuminating blast furnaces.
  • This target was chosen not because it was a significant military target, but because it was expected to be particularly susceptible.
  • Other German  targets suffered massive destruction and tens of thousands of civilians died as a result of bombing major cities, including Hamburg, (45,000 dead), Kassel (10,000), Darmstadt (12,500), Pforzheim (21,200), Swinemuende (23,000) and Dresden (25,000).
  • While accuracy improved during the war, survey studies showed that, overall, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within this target area.

• The Battle of Britain

  • As the battle progressed, the Luftwaffe also targeted factories involved in aircraft production and strategic infrastructure and, eventually, it employed terror bombing on areas of political significance and civilians.
  • This concentrated, direct bombing of industrial targets and civilian centres began with heavy raids on London on 7 September 1940, during the Battle of Britain.
  • Adolf Hitler's and Hermann Goering's plans to destroy the Royal Air Force to allow an invasion of Britain were failing, and in response to an RAF raid on Berlin, which itself was prompted by an accidental German bombing of London, they changed their tactics to the sustained bombing of civilian targets.
  • More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, almost half of them in London.
  • The North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, was subjected to 86 raids in the Hull Blitz during the war, with a conservative estimate of 1,200 civilians killed and 95 percent of its housing stock destroyed or damaged.

• Central America

  • A similar situation existed for El Salvador; even as tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered by government and government-allied forces in the early 1980s, Reagan stated that El Salvador was making "progress."
  • These manuals advocated targeting civilians, extrajudicial executions, torture, false imprisonment, and extortion.
  • Under the direction of the C.I.A., the largest Contra army, the Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense (FDN), attacked farms, cooperatives, schools, health clinics, and other civilian targets.
  • The army murdered, tortured, mutilated, and raped civilians and committed other war crimes, as documented by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

• Terrorism

  • They deliberately target or disregard the safety of civilians in order to gain publicity for a group, cause, or individual.

• The Final Ledger of Deaths

  • However, the distinction between military and civilian casualties caused directly by warfare and collateral damage is not always clear cut.
  • Civilians killed totaled 50 to 55 million, including 19 to 28 million from war-related disease and famine.
  • The mass-bombing of civilian areas, notably the cities of Warsaw, Rotterdam and London, including the aerial targeting of hospitals and fleeing refugees[335] by the German Luftwaffe, along with the bombing of Tokyo, and German cities of Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne by the Western Allies may be considered as war crimes.
  • The latter resulted in the destruction of more than 160 cities and the death of more than 600,000 German civilians.
  • Summarize the final ledger of military and civilian deaths of World War II.

• Homefront Security

  • During World War II, millions of American civilians were recruited by civil defense government programs to serve as volunteers and aid the war effort.
  • It was dissolved shortly after the defeat of Japan in 1945, and was replaced by the Civilian Production Administration in late 1945.
  • On May 20, 1941 the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD) was created to co-ordinate state and federal measures for protection of civilians in case of war emergency.
  • The U-boat became stuck on a sandbar, and consequently became an easy target.
  • Civil Air Patrol poster produced for the Office of Civilian Defense as part of a campaign to build interest in joining CAP during World War II.

• The War in the West

  • Most battles in the west involved conflict between American Indians and civilian settlers.
  • The Revolutionary War in the west was fought primarily between civilian settlers and American Indians allied with the British.
  • Early in the war, isolated settlers and hunters became frequent targets of attack, compelling many to return to the East.
  • Over the next several years of the war, both sides launched raids against each other, usually targeting settlements.

• D-Day and After

  • To gain the air superiority needed to ensure a successful invasion, the Allies undertook a bombing campaign (codenamed Operation Pointblank) that targeted German aircraft production, fuel supplies, and airfields. 
  • The target 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beach.
  • The Germans had ordered French civilians, other than those deemed essential to the war effort, to leave potential combat zones in Normandy.
  • Civilian casualties on D-Day and D+1 are estimated at 3,000 people.
  • Some of the opening bombardment was off-target or not concentrated enough to have any impact, but the specialized armor worked well except on Omaha, providing close artillery support for the troops as they disembarked onto the beaches.

• Biological Weapons

  • These agents may be lethal or non-lethal, and may be targeted against a single individual, a group of people, or even an entire population.
  • The rationale behind this treaty, which has been ratified or acceded to by 165 countries as of 2011, is to prevent a biological attack which could conceivably result in large numbers of civilian fatalities and cause severe disruption to economic and societal infrastructure.
  • While containment of BW is less of a concern for certain criminal or terrorist organizations, it remains a significant concern for the military and civilian populations of virtually all nations.