Azmat Khan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter whose work grapples with the human costs of war.
She is an investigative reporter with the New York Times Magazine and the Birch Assistant Professor at Columbia Journalism School, where she is also the director of the Li Center for Global Journalism. Khan is writing a book for Random House investigating America's air wars.
Her investigations have prompted widespread policy impact and won more than a dozen awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, two National Magazine Awards, two Overseas Press Club awards, the Polk Award, and the Hillman Prize. — READ MORE
Awarded THE 2022 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting
A years-long, multi-part New York Times investigation based on more than 1,300 military records, ground reporting from the sites of more than 100 civilian casualty strikes in Iraq, Syria & Afghanistan, and scores of interviews
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Documents on Military Processes and Procedures & Glossary of Terms
IMPACT
The investigation spurred impact across government and civil society, including direct action from the Secretary of Defense, who ordered military officials “improve upon efforts to protect civilians” during U.S. combat operations. Congressional leaders also proposed bicameral legislation to overhaul systemic problems identified in the Civilian Casualty Files, including The Protection of Civilians in Military Operations Act (POCIMO) and The DoD Civilian Harm Transparency Act (CHTA). The reporting also triggered a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on drone strikes — the second only in its history on this subject — and was also cited in multiple letters by Congressional leaders and civil society groups. The publication of records has also spurred ongoing scholarship by scholars of law, political science, international relations and human rights, as well as advocacy efforts on behalf of victims and survivors.
U.S. military officials say the anti-ISIS air war in Iraq and Syria is the most precise aerial campaign in the history of warfare. But this on-the-ground investigation by Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal for The New York Times Magazine reveals that the air war has been significantly less precise than the U.S.-led coalition claims.
Khan visited the sites of nearly 150 airstrikes across northern Iraq, not long after ISIS was evicted from them. She toured the wreckage; interviewed hundreds of witnesses, survivors, family members, intelligence informants and local officials; photographed bomb fragments, scoured local news sources, identified ISIS targets in the vicinity and mapped the destruction through satellite imagery. She also visited the American air base in Qatar where the coalition directs the air campaign. There, she was given access to the main operations floor and interviewed senior commanders, intelligence officials, legal advisers and civilian-casualty assessment experts. She provided their analysts with the coordinates and date ranges of every airstrike in the sample — 103 in all — in three ISIS-controlled areas and examined their responses. The result is the first systematic, ground-based sample of airstrikes in Iraq since this latest military action began in 2014.
One in five of the coalition strikes Khan and Gopal identified resulted in civilian death, a rate more than 31 times that acknowledged by the coalition. It is at such a distance from official claims that, in terms of civilian deaths, this may be the least transparent war in recent American history. The reporting revealed a consistent failure by the coalition to investigate claims properly or to keep records that make it possible to investigate the claims at all. Many of the civilian deaths documented appeared to be the result of flawed or outdated intelligence that conflated civilians with combatants. In this system, Iraqis are considered guilty until proved innocent. Those who survive the strikes remain marked as possible ISIS sympathizers, with no discernible path to clear their names. The investigation was also the subject of a special three-part series on The Daily podcast.
IMPACT: Based on the investigation’s findings, Congress passed legislation that for the first time designated a civilian official to be in charge of military civilian casualty policy and reforms. Senior members of the Obama Administration came forward in The Atlantic to admit that they were “part of an administration that fell short” when it came to civilian casualties. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont called on the Department of Defense to make payments to civilian survivors of U.S. combat operations and to commission a panel of civilian casualty documentation experts to conduct a review of intelligence and targeting procedures. And the New York Times Editorial Board called on Congress to demand true accountability & transparency on civilian casualties, because “Americans need to understand the full cost and consequences of military actions undertaken in their names.”
The investigation was also recognized with the following awards:
+ 2018 National Magazine Award for Reporting
+ 2018 Overseas Press Club Ed Cunningham Award
+ 2018 Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism
+ Deadline Club Award for Magazine Investigative Reporting
+ 2018 One World Media Print Award
The United States trumpets education as its shining success in the war in Afghanistan. But this on-the-ground investigation by Azmat Khan—based on visits to more than 50 U.S.-funded schools in battlefield provinces, internal U.S. and Afghan databases and documents, and more than 150 interviews— revealed how American efforts have fallen woefully short of the grand claims the government made, claims that it knew were false. What went wrong is a story of overhyping in Washington, of noble intentions going astray in a society America did not understand, and of the pitfalls of using humanitarian aid and 'soft power' to support military and political goals.
After publication, reaction was swift: Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania wrote USAID officials to say he was “particularly disturbed” by the findings, and asked the agency for detailed monitoring and evaluation plans. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction cited the report in its semiannual report to Congress. And in Afghanistan, President Ashraf Ghani appointed a nine-member commission to investigate corruption in the Ministry of Education.
The investigation was awarded the 2016 Deadline Club Award for Independent Digital Reporting, the 2016 Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding Reporting on South Asia, and a finalist for the 2016 Livingston Award in International Reporting.
For PBS FRONTLINE, Azmat Khan produced this immersive film taking viewers through the harrowing reality of what happens when the Syrian government bombs its own people. It is a journey through the village of Al-Bara as airstrikes fall. Filmmaker Olly Lambert captures the chaos on the ground as villagers struggle to rescue family and friends trapped under rubble, the fear that pulses through the community when the government jets return for a second bombing run, and the haunting calls for revenge that illustrate the country’s descent into chaos. The film was nominated for a 2014 Emmy award in the category New Approaches to Documentary Film.
In January 2011, millions of Egyptians took to the streets. On the ground in Cairo for PBS FRONTLINE, Azmat Khan field produced an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood's role in the revolution. Our film "The Brothers," and "Revolution in Cairo," received an Emmy award for Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in a News Magazine, as well as an Overseas Press Club citation for Best Online Coverage of Breaking News.