Casualty is first civilian death the MoD has admitted responsibility for since airstrikes in region began four years ago

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years 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.