An RAF airstrike against three Islamic State fighters in eastern Syria on 26 March “unintentionally” killed a civilian, Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary, has said in a written ministerial statement.

It is the first time the Ministry of Defence has confirmed a civilian casualty during Britain’s campaign against the terror group in Iraq and Syria. The defence secretary said the RAF had conducted more than 1,600 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.

“We do everything we can to minimise the risk to civilian life from UK strikes through our rigorous targeting processes and the professionalism of UK service personnel. It is therefore deeply regrettable that a UK airstrike on 26 March 2018, targeting Daesh [Isis] fighters in eastern Syria, resulted in an unintentional civilian fatality.

“During a strike to engage three Daesh fighters, a civilian motorbike crossed into the strike area at the last moment and it is assessed that one civilian was unintentionally killed.” </s> A Royal Air Force airstrike targeting three Islamic State fighters in Syria has killed a civilian on a motorbike who rode into the target zone, it emerged today.

The airstrike on March 26 'unintentionally' killed the civilian who crossed into the strike area 'at the last moment', Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said.

It is the first time the Ministry of Defence has confirmed a civilian casualty during Britain's campaign against the terror group in Iraq and Syria.

Britain has carried out more than 1,600 air strikes in Iraq and Syria - and UK forces have trained 60,000 members of the Iraqi Security Force, Mr Williamson said.

An MoD statement on the attack from March 26 said: 'A Reaper tracked a group of terrorists in a vehicle in the Syrian Euphrates valley on Monday March 26, and successfully destroyed it and its occupants with a precision Hellfire missile attack.'

In January, it was revealed that RAF crews had taken out ISIS terrorists using drones for reconnaissance and bombing raids in Syria for the first time.

Last year military commanders claimed victory against ISIS in Iraq, but the US-led coalition is continuing the battle against the militants in Syria.

Mr Williamson said: 'We do everything we can to minimise the risk to civilian life from UK strikes through our rigorous targeting processes and the professionalism of UK Service personnel.

'It is therefore deeply regrettable that a UK air strike on March 26, 2018, targeting Daesh fighters in eastern Syria, resulted in an unintentional civilian fatality.

'During a strike to engage three Daesh fighters, a civilian motorbike crossed into the strike area at the last moment and it is assessed that one civilian was unintentionally killed.

'We reached this conclusion after undertaking routine and detailed post-strike analysis of all available evidence.'

He added that the wider coalition will carry out an investigation, but the UK's commitment to fighting against ISIS 'will remain as strong as ever'.

The confirmation comes one day after a source inside the coalition told the BBC that he believed civilians could have been killed by RAF airstrikes.

That claim brought into doubt a previous statement by the Ministry of Defence that it had seen 'no evidence' of its strikes in Iraq causing civilian casualties.

But the MoD confirmed today that the incident on March 26 saw the only civilian death caused by RAF strikes on ISIS in Iraq or Syria since they began.

Mr Williamson said: 'These events serve to remind us of the consequences of conflict and of the heavy price that the people of Syria have paid.

'It reminds us that when we undertake military action, we must do so knowing that it can never be completely without risk.

'Such incidents will not weaken our resolve to defeat Daesh and rid the world of its poisonous ideology of hate and intolerance.' </s> The United States Central Command has released a statement admitting that US airstrikes hit Syrian Army positions.

They claim that they hit Syrian soldiers by mistake when they were targeting ISIS terrorists.

Up to 80 Syrian service men were killed in the incident near Deir al-Zor military airport on Saturday

US military officials acknowledge responsibility for the bombing attack against Syrian Army positions that paved the way for a major Daesh offensive against Assad government forces and that killed 80 Syrian service personnel, but claimed that the attack was an accident with the intended target being Daesh terrorists.

The attack was conducted by two F-16 fighter jets and two A10 ground attack aircraft that came into Syrian airspace through the Iraqi border without authorization from the Assad government.

The Russian Ministry of Defense immediately blasted the United States for the lethal attack observing that Daesh engaged in a major offensive after American forces crippled the Assad regime’s position. “If this airstrike was carried out due to an error in the coordinates of the targetm it is a direct consequence of US side’s unwillingless to coordinate its actions against terrorist groups with Russia,” the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman emphasized.

The attack came amid a ceasefire in Syria agreed upon by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry one week earlier and that came into effect on September 12. The attack threatens to undermine the delicate ceasefire agreement with the Syrian government concerned that it will provide Daesh terrorists an opportunity to regroup and that the rebels will not hold to the arrangement. Nonetheless, the attack also highlights the importance of the ceasefire deal and the need for the United States and Russia to coordinate on intelligence.

In the statement, Central Command says that “Coalition forces believed they were striking a Da’esh fighting position that they had been tracking for a significant amount of time before the strike. The coalition airstrike was halted immediately when coalition forces were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military.”

The statement, provided in full below, goes on to imply that Russia is somehow to blame for the egregious accident that killed the 80 Syrian soldiers because the US claims that it “had earlier informed Russian counterparts of the upcoming strike.” </s> This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The United Nations security council has called an emergency meeting to discuss air strikes by the US-led coalition in Syria, diplomats said, after Russia said coalition warplanes had bombed and killed Syrian government forces.

Vladimir Putin questions US commitment to Syria ceasefire deal Read more

The 15-member council was due to meet behind closed doors on Saturday evening in New York, diplomats told Reuters.

The US envoy to the United nations, Samantha Power, said she regretted loss of life in the Syria airstrike, but said the Russian call for the security council meeting was “a stunt”.

Earlier on Saturday Russia’s ministry of defense said coalition planes had killed 62 Syrian soldiers, wounded 100 more and allowed Islamic State militants to gain an advantage through the strike.

The Pentagon did not outright admit that coalition planes had hit Syrian forces, but said that pilots had “believed they were striking a Daesh [Isis] fighting position” and may have struck Syrian government forces instead.

The death toll could not immediately be confirmed. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based group that has tracked casualties of the war, reported that about 80 Syrian soldiers were killed. The Russian defense ministry said more than 100 were injured.

In a statement, the ministry echoed questions from President Vladimir Putin about US commitment to a shaky ceasefire deal brokered by the two countries, and said the airstrikes could be evidence that American officials had not consulted with their counterparts in Moscow.

“If this airstrike was the result of a targeting error,” Russian major general Igor Konashenkov said in a statement, “it is a direct consequence of the US side’s stubborn unwillingness to coordinate its action against terrorist groups on Syrian territory with Russia.”



Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, was subsequently quoted by Ria Novosti saying the Kremlin would demand an explanation at the UN.

“We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world,” she said, according to the state-owned news agency. “The White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that.

“We demand a full and detailed explanation from Washington. That explanation must be given at the UN Security Council.”

Konashenkov did not identify the planes’ country of origin, but said they were part of the US-led coalition. US central commmand (Centcom) said “Russian counterparts” had been consulted.

The Russian defense ministry said Isis militants were emboldened by the airstrikes, which hit an airport near Deir al-Zor, and that the forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad were now fighting a pitched battle against those of the terror group. It also said the strikes were conducted between 5pm and 5.30pm local time by two F-16s and A-10s that entered the country from the direction of Iraq.

SOHR said Russian warplanes had been bombing the same region recently, citing a source at the airport who also said Isis fighters had used the strike to overrun a government position.



Centcom acknowledged the strikes in a statement, saying: “Coalition forces believed they were striking an [Isis] fighting position that they had been tracking for a significant amount of time before the strike.”

The statement added: “The coalition airstrike was halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military.”

Centcom said the coalition had struck the area in the past, and that its members had “earlier informed Russian counterparts of the upcoming strike”.

“It is not uncommon for the Coalition Air Operations Center to confer with Russian officials as a professional courtesy and to deconflict,” the command center said, “although such contact is not required by the current US-Russia Memorandum of Understanding on safety of flight.”

The statement added that “coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit” and that they would “review this strike and the circumstances surrounding it to see if any lessons can be learned”.

The US and Russia last week brokered a controversial ceasefire that made provisions for joint strikes on jihadi militants, even though the Kremlin stands accused of killing 2,000 civilians in six months of strikes.



Many Russian strikes have targeted US-backed groups that oppose Assad’s government, which is itself responsible for tens of thousands of civilians killed, many with chemical weapons, according to rights groups. The US says its bombing campaign has killed 55 civilians, though rights groups say at least 210 died in the battle for the city of Manbij alone.

Migrant death toll expected to exceed 10,000 in 2016 Read more

Elements of the Syria pact have been resisted by leaders in the Pentagon, including defense secretary Ash Carter. State-owned Russian news agencies have quoted military officials as saying that Syrian rebels have violated the ceasefire agreement 55 times already. Rebels have alleged violations by Assad’s forces.

Aid shipments into the devastated city of Aleppo have yet to be allowed to reach civilians. More than 470,000 people have been killed in the Syrian civil war since 2011, according to the Syrian Center for Policy Research.

On Saturday, Putin blamed ceasefire violations and the aid blockade on resistance from Washington, saying Americans “still cannot separate the so-called healthy part of the opposition from the half-criminal and terrorist elements.

“In my opinion, this comes from the desire to keep the combat potential in fighting the legitimate government of Bashar Assad. But this is a very dangerous route.”

Putin has supported Assad’s government since the start of the war with money, aid and arms, and, since last September, with airstrikes. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — An explosion outside an office belonging to an al-Qaida-linked group in the country’s northwestern on Friday killed at least 11 people and wounded several others, opposition activists said.

The blast comes a week after members of the al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee, or HTS, took over control of wide parts of Idlib province and the surrounding countryside after forcing rival insurgents to accept a deal for a civil administration run by HTS in their areas.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Smart news agency, an activist collective, said the blast occurred on the southern edge of the rebel-held city of Idlib.

The Observatory said 11 people were killed in the blast, including seven HTS members. Smart said 12 people were killed, many of them militants.

In the country’s east, an airstrike in the last area held by the Islamic State group killed at least 20 people.

State news agency SANA said 20 people were killed in the airstrike on the IS-held village of Baghouz, while the Observatory said 23 people were killed including 10 IS members.

They both blamed the U.S.-led coalition that has been providing air cover to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in their monthslong offensive to capture the area from extremists near the Iraqi border.

The SDF has intensified its offensive over the past weeks on the IS-held area.

Meanwhile in Turkey, President Tayyip Erdogan met with U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to discuss the situation in Syria as the United States prepares to withdraw troops.

Graham, a prominent voice on foreign affairs in the U.S., met with Erdogan and other Turkish officials Friday for talks that were also expected to include a proposal for the creation of a “safe zone” in northeast Syria.

The visit comes days after a suicide bombing, claimed by IS, killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians in the northeastern town of Manbij.

Graham has said he is concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump’s troop withdrawal announcement had emboldened Islamic State militants and created dangerous uncertainty for American allies.

The Pentagon identified three of the four Americans killed in the suicide bomb attack in Manbij — Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Florida, who was based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, from upstate New York and based at Fort Meade, Maryland; and a civilian, Scott A. Wirtz, from St. Louis. </s> Casualty is first civilian death the MoD has admitted responsibility for since airstrikes in region began four years ago

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

An RAF drone strike killed a civilian in Syria last month, the first time the Ministry of Defence has admitted responsibility for the death of a non-combatant since beginning air attacks in the region almost four years ago.



According to the MoD, a Reaper drone armed with a Hellfire missile fired at three suspected Islamic State fighters on 26 March. Almost simultaneously, a civilian on a motorbike entered the target area and was killed too.

The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, in a written statement to parliament described the fatality as “deeply regrettable”.

The MoD has faced scepticism over repeated claims that not a single airstrike out of 1,600 in Iraq, and latterly Syria, had resulted in any known civilian deaths since strikes began in September 2014. The decision to admit responsibility in this case follows a review of aerial footage and other evidence.

Williamson, in the written statement, said: “We do everything we can to minimise the risk to civilian life from UK strikes through our rigorous targeting processes and the professionalism of UK service personnel.

“It is, therefore, deeply regrettable that a UK airstrike on 26 March 2018, targeting Daesh [Isis] fighters in eastern Syria, resulted in an unintentional civilian fatality. During a strike to engage three Daesh fighters, a civilian motorbike crossed into the strike area at the last moment and it is assessed that one civilian was unintentionally killed.”

Williamson added: “We reached this conclusion after undertaking routine and detailed post-strike analysis of all available evidence.”



A separate review will be carried out by the US-led coalition of which the UK is a part. If the family of the dead man comes forward, they will be receive compensation.

The former defence secretary, Michael Fallon, was met with scepticism in 2015 when he told the BBC: “Our estimate is that there hasn’t yet been a single civilian casualty because of the precision of their strikes.”

Independent data at the time suggested the US-led coalition’s overall record of civilian casualties was roughly about 6%-8%.

The MoD later elaborated to say that while it could not state definitively that no civilian had been killed, no one had come forward until this latest incident with evidence of a single death attributable to an RAF strike.

The MOD says it uses precision weapons and there are elaborate checks before a strike is ordered, in order to avoid civilian casualties.

The use of drones is controversial, with repeated questions about their legality. As with strikes from planes, there are also questions about the accuracy of the intelligence on which attacks are based.

Chris Cole, who runs Drone Wars, a UK-based organisation that monitors their use, said that based on recent freedom of information requests there had been a dramatic increase in UK drone strikes in Syria in the first quarter of this year – 92 in total.

Cole said this was as many as the total number for the previous 18 months and more than those fired from RAF Tornado and Typhoon aircraft.

He also said the RAF had confirmed the use of the thermobaric version of the Hellfire missile, the first time it has publicly acknowledged using them in Syria. The MoD acknowledged in 2009 their use from helicopters in Afghanistan.

Human rights groups have criticised the use of thermobaric weapons, which create a pressure wave that sucks the air out of victims, rather than more traditional weapons that pierce armour or blast fragments over a wide area.

The MoD did not specify whether a thermobaric weapon had been used in this case. </s> A civilian was killed by a UK airstrike targeting Islamic State in Syria, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed for the first time.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson described the "unintentional civilian fatality" on 26 March as "deeply regrettable".

The RAF had targeted three IS fighters in eastern Syria when a civilian motorbike "crossed into the strike area at the last moment", he said.

It is the first time the MoD has confirmed a civilian casualty during Britain's campaign against the terror group in Iraq and Syria.

"These events serve to remind us of the consequences of conflict and of the heavy price that the people of Syria have paid," Mr Williamson said.

"It reminds us that when we undertake military action, we must do so knowing that it can never be completely without risk.

"Such incidents will not weaken our resolve to defeat Daesh and rid the world of its poisonous ideology of hate and intolerance."

The MoD said an RAF Reaper drone "tracked a group of terrorists in a vehicle in the Syrian Euphrates valley" and "successfully destroyed it and its occupants with a precision Hellfire missile attack".

It concluded that a civilian had been killed following "detailed post-strike analysis" of the airstrike, Mr Williamson said.

An investigation by the "wider Coalition" will report in due course, he added. </s> BEIRUT -- The U.S. military suffered its first combat death in Syria on Thursday when a service member was killed in the northern part of the country, an area where the United States is helping organize an offensive against the Islamic State.

U.S. warplanes have been bombing targets inside Syria to help tens of thousands of militia fighters try to oust the Islamic State from Raqqa, the group's stronghold in the country.

U.S. forces are on the ground as well. More than 300 members of U.S. special operations forces are in Syria to help recruit, train and advise the Kurdish and Arab fighters who are trying to encircle the Islamic State in Raqqa, cut off its supplies and ultimately retake the city.

The special operations forces member who died Thursday was killed by an improvised explosive device in the vicinity of Ayn Issa in northern Syria, U.S. military officials said.

"I am deeply saddened by the news on this Thanksgiving Day that one of our brave service members has been killed in Syria while protecting us from the evil of ISIL," Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in a statement, using one of the names for the Islamic State group. "It is a painful reminder of the dangers our men and women in uniform face around the world to keep us safe."

The area where the service member was killed is halfway between Raqqa and the Turkish border, and several factions have been active there, including the Syrian Kurds, the Islamic State and most recently tribal fighters who oppose the Kurds, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist websites.

Also, three Turkish soldiers were killed in northern Syria in what the Turkish military said was a pre-dawn Syrian airstrike on Thursday, an account disputed by Syrian activists, who said the soldiers were killed by an Islamic State suicide attack the day before.

The Turkish military said in a statement on its website that the attack took place at 3:30 a.m., but did not provide an exact location. Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency said the airstrike took place near the town of al-Bab, which Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces are trying to take back from the Islamic State group.

However, a Syrian monitoring group that tracks the conflict through a network of activists inside the country said the Turkish soldiers were killed by an Islamic State suicide attack on Wednesday.

Rami Abdurrahman, who runs the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the suicide attack occurred outside al-Bab, near a village called Waqqah. He dismissed reports that it was an airstrike.

The conflicting accounts could not be immediately reconciled. There was no comment from Damascus, but the Islamic State-run Aamaq news agency reported a suicide attack Wednesday against Turkish troops in a village near al-Bab.

The Turkish military said 10 other soldiers were wounded in the attack, with one in critical condition.

If the attack is confirmed to be a Syrian government airstrike, it would escalate tensions with Turkey, which is a leading supporter of the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.

Citing national security considerations, Turkish authorities imposed a temporary media ban on coverage of the attack, barring media outlets from reports that "foster fear, panic and chaos," and contain images of the deceased or the wounded, or exaggerated accounts.

Turkish warplanes meanwhile struck Islamic State positions in al-Bab and other northern Syrian towns, destroying a building reportedly used as an Islamic State headquarters and seven defensive positions, Anadolu reported, citing unnamed Turkish military officials.

Elsewhere in Syria, a senior U.N. official said his team has received written approval from Syrian rebels in the besieged parts of the northern city of Aleppo to allow aid in and evacuate the wounded.

Information for this article was contributed by Cinar Kiper, Suzan Fraser, Sarah El Deeb and Bassem Mroue of The Associated Press and by Alissa J. Rubin, Karam Shoumali, Eric Schmitt, Hwaida Saad and Safak Timur of The New York Times. </s> Sixty-four civilians were killed and eight were injured in 24 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria over the past year, the U.S. military said Wednesday, based on newly completed investigations.

The latest totals bring the number of civilians killed in airstrikes in the fight against the Islamic State group to 119, with another 37 injured, according to U.S. Central Command.

Col. John Thomas, Central Command spokesman, said the investigations concluded that the proper military process was followed in each incident and precautions are always taken to try to avoid any civilian deaths.

Independent monitoring groups and activists, however, have repeatedly said that coalition and other airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians.

The cases announced Wednesday include strikes from last November through September. And they range from one or two civilians killed to a March strike near Mosul, Iraq, that killed 10 civilians.

The latest report, however, doesn't include two air attacks in Syria in recent months that may have each killed dozens. According to residents and international aid groups, an airstrike in July near Manbij, Syria, may have killed at least 56 civilians and wounded many more.

And a U.S. brigadier general has been appointed to lead an investigation in a September airstrike near Deir el-Zour, Syria, that may have unintentionally killed dozens of Syrian government forces.

The U.S. has said that it monitored the target for two days and deemed it valid before launching the strike. But it was halted when Russian officials called the coalition to say the attack was hitting personnel and vehicles that were part of the Syrian military.

There have been lingering questions about reports that the troops or people on the ground were not wearing uniforms and that they were armed, leading to confusion about who they might be. Other theories suggest they may have been conscripted troops or prisoners of some sort, but there have been no solid findings yet on those reports.

As of Wednesday, U.S. Central Command has received 257 allegations of airstrikes causing possible civilian casualties, and has concluded that 76 of the reports were valid and required further investigation. Of those 76, four were duplicates.

To date, 65 of the investigations have been completed, and about half of them have been publicly disclosed. Seven allegations remain open.
A US-led airstrike intended to kill ISIS soldiers mistakenly kills 18 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.