LONDON (Middle East Eye) – The UK-based war monitor, Airwars, is set to challenge the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) in a tribunal over the refusal to release basic information about a civilian killed in Syria in 2018.
Airwars, which tracked air strikes against the Daesh and other groups in Iraq, Syria and Libya since 2014, said that it would challenge the MoD and the Information Commissioner in court, with the appeal due to come to a head later this year.
The case involves an air strike on 26 March 2018 allegedly on Daesh terrorist in which the UK government accepted the killing of a civilian “unintentionally,” which Airwars said was “the only time the UK government has officially accepted harming civilians”.
Former Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson told parliament in May 2018 that “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.”
Airwars had asked the MoD to release basic information about this civilian, but the ministry refused.
The group said that British aircraft dropped more than 4,300 munitions during the eight years of the UK’s occupation of Iraq and Syria, and according to MoD figures, more than 4,000 Daesh terrorist were killed in the air raids. It says no other civilians were killed.
The British government logs of all RAF air strikes don’t show a strike on the day of 26 March 2018, the group said.
Airwars also said that the civilian casualty unit, working within the U.S.-led coalition, “reviewed the details of the same strike”.
Joe Dyke, head of investigations at Airwars, filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request in 2021 following the MoD refusal to release more information about the March 2018 incident.
He asked for details about the location of the strike and documents outlining how the determination that the victim was a civilian was reached, Airwars said.