• AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    7 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The Ministry of Defence does not have effective oversight of civilian casualties in UK military campaigns overseas, which puts lives at risk and undermines British foreign policy objectives, a tribunal heard on Thursday.

    The UK has admitted causing only one civilian death in its nearly decade-long campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a position widely criticised as implausible by defence establishment insiders and the civil service.

    However, testimony in open court from a senior ministry official raised profound questions about Britain’s capacity, and its political will, to monitor and investigate civilian deaths caused by its armed forces.

    Ahead of the hearing, the MoD admitted that the March 2018 airstrike was missing from its publicly released records of attacks in Syria and Iraq, and the death had not been registered with coalition officials tracking civilian casualties in the campaign.

    Airwars argued that precedent from multiple allies, including the US, show it is possible to reveal details of how reports that civilians may have been harmed are assessed, without causing risks to national security.

    Those who questioned the British military’s claim to have killed only a single civilian in nearly a decade of often intense aerial bombardment, include former MoD permanent secretary, David Omand, and veterans minister, Johnny Mercer, who raised the issue in a parliamentary committee hearing in April 2019.


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