Britain’s unreported bombing of Iraq and Syria

The regime in Britain, which is a mere shadow of its bygone colonial days, plays the role of vulture today, and wherever the US creates wars and bloodshed, it stoops to feed on the carcass by cowardly attacking the beleaguered victims of terrorism.

Though largely unreported, Britain has launched 244 drone and airstrikes in Iraq and Syria during 2018, firing 512 munitions – not on the Takfiri terrorists, but on the oppressed Iraqi and Syrian people, the victims of western and Arab backed terrorism.

Back in 2016, the British daily ‘The Guardian’ published a piece about “The Chilcott Report” and how Britain should be more careful over civilian deaths in the battlegrounds of West and South Asia.

The Chilcot report says, after the Iraq war inquiry’s series of damning conclusions about the loss of life following the 2003 invasion: “Future British governments must make a greater effort to assess the number of civilians being killed and injured during their military operations.”

It is clear the government didn’t listen and the mainstream media do not think it important enough to report on today.

Interestingly, John Chilcot believed as late as 2016 that about 150,000 Iraqis were killed during the invasion and subsequent instability. The figure was in fact well over one million. This much was known years earlier.

Chilcott, covering for his friend Tony Blair did not read the mounting evidence – or more likely, just ignored it. The 2006 Lancet survey calculated fatalities at well over 650,000 just three years into the conflict and the 2007 survey that actually surveyed fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq found that number was somewhere between 1,033,000 and a staggering 1,220,588. Since then, the violence created by the vacuum has continued and many more civilians have died. The numbers above do not include deaths after 13 years of sanctions imposed by the UN.

Many members of the general public in Britain might mistakenly think that the bombing has stopped in Iraq and Syria – but they would be wrong. In fact, in the last four years, Britain has spent over £300 million on weapons fired from its air forces, including drones. The cost does not include personnel, wages, equipment, maintenance, fuel, air bases, etc.

Analysis of data conducted by human rights group Reprieve in 2014 concluded that of 41 men targeted by coalition drone strikes a further 1,147 innocent civilians were killed simply for being in the way.

Do you remember when George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2015 said the cost of extending airstrikes in Syria would run in the low tens of millions of pounds!

Well, it ended up in the high hundreds of millions when adding the total cost – any many people have died as a result.

The drone wars demonstrates Britain’s continued bombing activities in West Asia with statistics covering the period 2014-2018.

Author Chris Cole in his work “Drone Wars UK”, writes: “The rise in UK air and drone strikes in Syria since September 2018 has been laid bare. The number of British strikes in Syria per month rose to its highest ever amount (75) in December 2018.

Overall, Britain launched 244 air and drone strikes in Iraq and Syria during 2018, firing 512 munitions. Between 2014 and the end of 2018, Britain has fired more than 4,100 missiles and bombs in a total of 1,925 strikes in Iraq and Syria. 

In 2018, for the first time, more British weapons were fired in Syria than in Iraq – in fact almost 10 times more (464 in Syria, 48 in Iraq). While British warplanes continue to fly in Iraq, 90% of British aerial missions occurred in Syria.

Britain’s Reaper Drones continued to operate in both Iraq and Syria during 2018, however, there were no UK drone strikes in Iraq. While the Ministry of Defence continues to insist that its drones are primarily for intelligence and surveillance operations, Reapers fired more weapons in 2018 than Britain’s prime strike aircraft, the Tornado, and almost as many as Typhoons.

Some 27% of British strikes were carried out by drones during 2018. Overall, a quarter of all British air strikes have been carried out by drones.

Although Daesh has been virtually defeated as a military force in Iraq and Syria, with its territory reduced to a few square miles in the Euphrates Valley, British ministers and defence officials insists that London will continue the airstrikes until what they claim the group is absolutely and totally defeated.

Other nations are withdrawing their forces and senior British commanders acknowledge that Daesh is no longer a credible military force, although they have bombed Syrian civilians and not the terrorists. While Britain has withdrawn the Tornados, its drones and Typhoons continue to launch strikes.  In the case of British Reaper drones, that’s approaching 12 years of continuously launching strikes.
(A report by the TruePublica)