On December 13 last year an air strike obliterated a house in East Mosul. The target was Islamic State, but 11 members of one family were reportedly killed, with five children among the dead.

Key points: Australia described as one of the least transparent military coalition members

Australia described as one of the least transparent military coalition members Defence tells FOI request it does not track enemy and/or civilian casualties in Iraq or Syria

Defence tells FOI request it does not track enemy and/or civilian casualties in Iraq or Syria UN Special Rapporteur says if true, Australia may not be meeting obligations under international law

"You don't get to drop bombs on cities and towns and not kill civilians. It took a month before it was safe enough to dig those bodies out but now we know the names of every one of those victims," said Chris Woods, director of Airwars, an independent NGO set up to hold nations accountable for civilian deaths from air strikes.

What is not known is who is responsible for the loss of these innocent lives.

"We know the coalition bombed in Mosul that day, Iraq may have also bombed that day … if it was the coalition that carried out the strike, it may have been the US it may have been Britain, Australia, Belgium, France, we just don't know," Mr Woods said.

Reham, 13, is reported to have died when coalition warplanes fired missiles on Al Tabaqa city in Raqqa, December 20, 2016. ( Supplied: Airwars )

"It's important to try and understand, and attribute responsibility."

The risk of civilian casualties in the air campaign against Islamic State is incredibly high.

Thousands of hardline jihadists are deliberately hiding alongside more than a million civilians across eastern Syria and north Iraq.

As a member of the coalition, Australia's Air Force has been carrying out air strikes in Syria and Iraq, some of them in densely populated civilian areas.

Now, serious questions are being raised about Australia's tracking of suspected civilian casualty incidents.

"In our view, there's no real transparency from Australia here and there's no real accountability either," Mr Woods said.

Australia one of the least transparent coalition members: Airwars

For many years the United States was criticised for secrecy surrounding alleged civilian casualty incidents, but there has been a significant shift towards transparency.

Airwars said there was an unprecedented level of cooperation by the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) to investigate suspected civilian casualty incidents.

Each month Airwars shares all of the allegations they are aware of regarding civilian casualties with CENTCOM, providing dates, locations and GPS coordinates.

"The Americans will then come back and say, 'No, we categorically weren't involved in this — we didn't bomb in this location'," Mr Woods said.

"They might come back and say, 'Yes, we've already got an assessment underway', or they'll say, 'We're going to trigger an investigation or assessment because of your information'.

"Other coalition partners tell us every week— sometimes even daily — where they bomb, when they bomb, and what they target.

"That's really, really important information because it allows us to cross-reference the public record where there are claims, allegations of civilians killed on the battlefield."

CENTCOM confirmed it had carried out air strikes in the IS-occupied village of Fadhiliya, near Mosul. ( Supplied: Airwars )

But Airwars said Australia was refusing to disclose the date, location and targets of their air strikes and that the NGO now ranks the ADF as one of the least transparent military coalition members.

"The contrast with Australia couldn't be starker. With Australia we get nothing," Mr Woods said.

"We're incapable of engaging with Australia because they won't tell us where they bomb, they won't tell us when they bomb and they won't tell us what they bomb — and that's been going on for 30 months."

FOI shows Australia keeps no record on civilian deaths

Newcastle lawyer and human rights advocate Kellie Tranter decided to dig deeper on Australia's record on suspected civilian casualties.

She lodged a Freedom of Information request to the ADF and was surprised by the response.

The department told her it "does not specifically collect authoritative (and therefore accurate) data on enemy and/or civilian casualties in either Iraq or Syria and certainly does not track such statistics".

"I was, to put it mildly, in shock," Ms Tranter said.

"How do we refute allegations that we've killed civilians if we are not tracking and holding that information?"

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Ben Emmerson (QC) is the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights, reporting annually to the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council.

He said that if what the ADF told Ms Tranter was true, Australia may not be meeting its obligations under international law.

"I find that extremely surprising that there is no central index kept of the number of combatants killed or civilian casualties," Mr Emmerson said.

"[If it is true] then that would certainly not be consistent with the principles laid out in my reports to the general assembly and the human rights council.

"A blanket refusal to release data on civilian casualties, regardless of the circumstances and regardless of any operational risk which there may or may not be, would not be consistent with any view of a state's responsibilities in international law."

7.30 asked the ADF what data they collect on enemy and civilian casualties.

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They said they do not provide "mission-specific details on individual engagements for operational security reasons".

The ADF said the US collects statistics on casualties and any information needs to be sought directly from them.

But when the 7.30 asked CENTCOM, they said each coalition country is responsible for tracking their own data in relation to suspected civilian casualties.

"We do not speak for our coalition partners and only talk publicly about US actions. Coalition nations speak for themselves," CENTCOM said in an email.

The ADF declined 7.30's request for an interview and said "all ADF personnel are required to immediately report suspected instances of civilian casualties" and "all reports are investigated".

The Defence Force also refused to say whether it was currently investigating any suspected civilian casualty incidents in Iraq or Syria.

Sorry, this video has expired ADF footage of airstrikes in Raqqa, January 17. ADF said it did not believe any civilians were in the cave at time of attack.

So far the Americans are the only coalition nation to admit they have killed civilians.

They said at least 220 people had been unintentionally killed by the US since the fight against ISIS began.

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Airwars believes the real toll is 10 times higher — more than 2,500 — with hundreds of civilians allegedly killed in just the first two weeks of March as the battle for Western Mosul gets underway.

Mr Woods said that with the number of air strikes Australia has conducted in Syria and Iraq, it was "impossible" that civilians would not have been killed.

"We're not saying these are war crimes or deliberate killings of civilians," Mr Woods said.

"Even when your bombs are going to the right place there's still human error, you still get civilians coming into the kill zone at the very last second you can't avert the missile.

"If all we get is denial how can we make things better? How can we improve on things?"