Iraq and Syria: Military Intervention

(asked on 21st October 2021) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate he has made of the number of civilian casualties as a result of British airstrikes against ISIS as part of the US-led Coalition in Iraq and Syria.


Answered by
James Heappey Portrait
James Heappey
This question was answered on 28th October 2021

The UK follows robust procedures and uses all available evidence when conducting battle damage assessments. Parliament will always be informed of any instance where we assess a UK airstrike is responsible for a civilian casualty incident, whether incurred during a new strike, or as a result of re-examining historic strikes using new information. Specifically under Operation SHADER, the UK's contribution to the US-led Coalition, Operation INHERENT RESOLVE, the UK has conducted airstrikes against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. The UK has accepted responsibility for one civilian casualty that occurred during an airstrike on Daesh fighters in eastern Syria on 26 March 2018. This incident was subject to a Written Ministerial Statement on 2 May 2018. However, we accept the possibility that there could be other instances of civilian casualties about which we are unaware, despite our best efforts to assess battle damage. For that reason, in 2016, the then Defence Secretary committed that MOD officials would work with civil society organisations on this issue. As a result, we always re-examine any new information relating to a potential incident submitted to us by such organisations, where it is possible that UK forces may have been involved.

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