UK admits killing civilian in airstrike on Syria

The United Kingdom has admitted that its airstrikes, which purportedly targeted the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Syria, killed a civilian, the first time to acknowledge civilian casualties after media revelations of several deaths.

According to media reports, British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson said in a statement on Wednesday that the Royal Air Force strike on three Daesh terrorists in eastern Syria on March 26 also killed a motorcyclist who crossed into the area at the last minute.

The statement comes a day after the BBC quoted a source inside the so-called US-led coalition purportedly fighting Daesh as saying that he believed civilians had been killed in "several" RAF air raids.

"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 said.

"We reached this conclusion after undertaking routine and detailed post-strike analysis of all available evidence," he added.

Back on March 26, the ministry said of the attack that a Reaper remotely-controlled aircraft had 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".

Meanwhile, the ministry on Wednesday provided details about Britain's involvement in the alleged fight against Daesh.

It said that RAF has carried out more than 1,600 aerial attacks in Iraq and Syria, second only to the US.

The statement further said that Britain had around 1,400 military personnel in the region providing "support to local partners".

SS