RAF strikes kill 1000 militants but no civilians, UK claims
British air strikes in Iraq and Syria have killed nearly 1,000 enemy “combatants” but not a single civilian, the UK Ministry of Defense has claimed.
Figures released under a freedom of information request revealed that Royal Air Force (RAF) strikes killed 974 terrorists in Iraq and 22 terrorists in Syria between September 2014 and March 2016.
The statistics also claimed that no civilians were killed by the bombs.
“Our records show that there were no civilian casualties for the period in question,” the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
Chris Woods, director of international air strikes monitor Air Wars, dismissed the claim as “ridiculous.”
“Even with the widespread use of relatively precise weapons by the West, air strikes are the most lethal weapon against civilians. It would be unprecedented in the history of warfare for it not to have killed civilians,” Woods told The Independent.
“It is a matter of public record [that] there have been a huge number of civilian casualties and yet the Ministry of Defense continues to deny any caused by the UK,” he added.
Figures compiled by Air Wars show that 32 civilians were feared dead in RAF strikes in the Iraqi cities if Mosul and Ramadi in December 2015 alone.
The Royal Air Force joined the US-led coalition bombing campaign in September 2014, launched to target Daesh (ISIL) positions in Iraq and Syria. The British parliament decided to extend the mission to Syria in December, 2015.
Air Wars estimates that a minimum of 1,172 civilians have been killed in at least 11,937 coalition attacks in Iraq and Syria since August 2014.
The US has admitted that its air campaign has caused civilian casualties. Earlier this month, the US military announced that at least 20 civilians were killed and 11 injured in air strikes between September and February.
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