"In others, they seem to have attacked military objectives and civilian objects without distinction, or caused disproportionate harm to civilians when striking military targets.
"Unlike our enemies, which deliberately and pointedly violate the law of armed conflict, the United States takes great care to adhere to the fundamental law of armed conflict principle of distinction, which requires that attacks be directed only against military objectives and that civilians and civilian objects not be the target of attack".
"The Russian armed forces appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military objective and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians," Amnesty said in its report.
"The Russian armed forces appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military objective and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians," it said in a report.
"In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives," Article 48 of the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol 1, says.
Notably, investigations into numerous instances of lethal attacks on civilians and civilian objects revealed that the attacks were intentional, that some were launched with the intention of spreading terror among the civilian population and with no justifiable military objective and that Israeli forces used Palestinian civilians as human shields.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, also focused on those goals, talking about how allied forces had grounded Colonel Qaddafi's aircraft and worked to protect civilians — both objectives stated by the United Nations Security Council in approving the military mission.
International law authorizes killings of civilians if the objective of the attack is military, and the means are proportional to the advantage gained.
Still, the deaths are troubling to the American and NATO commanders, who have made protecting civilians the overriding objective of their campaign -- even when doing so comes at the expense of letting insurgents get away.
Who Military BestrategiesSpeech as Parliament Voted for Article 50?
From 24 to 29 October, however, there were 71 cases of armed clashes between the army and the populace in fifty communities, ranging from the defence of attacks on civilian and military objectives to fighting with insurgents depending on the commanding officer.
