British jets and drones kill 4,013 jihadists in 4 years with one civilian death

British jets and drones targeted 4,315 jihadists over four years but killed only one civilian in the operations, according to Ministry of Defence figures.

As many as 4,013 of the fighters – mostly Islamic State extremists – were killed, whilst 302 are believed to have survived but were injured.

It means the strikes by RAF Tornado and Typhoon crews and Reaper unmanned drones have had an almost 93% success rate in killing jihadists.

Sadly one civilian died in the airstrikes – after being hit by a Hellfire missile on March 26 last year when he drove a motorbike into a blast which killed three jihadists.

The Hellfire was fired from an unmanned Reaper drone and controlled by RAF crews by remote at a base in the UK after being launched from Kuwait.

The figures, covering a period from September 2014 to January this year, were released in a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the campaign group Action on Armed Violence (A0AV).

In total, 75% of those estimated to have been killed or injured were in Iraq with 25% in Syria.

It comes as Islamic State faces military defeat in Syria, its territory having dwindled down to the size of a few football pitches at its final enclave.

Today the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces -SDF- was continuing the evacuation of people wishing to leave besieged enclave of Baghouz in Eastern Syria.

This was before the final assault on Islamic State, which once controlled swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Islamic State is expected to be wiped out militarily in the next few days whilst many of its followers are still a danger globally.

But yesterday executive director of Action on Armed Violence Iain Overton greeted the kill figures with scepticism, saying: “The RAF’s claim of a ratio of one civilian casualty against 4,315 enemies must be a world record in modern conflict.

"Yet few conflict experts believe this to be true.”

“The MoD notes in the FoI released information that ‘information concerning enemy killed and wounded in action is based on the best available post-strike analysis’.”

He argued that the British military is unable to assess the battlefield damage on the ground, whilst senior sources in the military hit back that this is “simply not true.”

One source told the Daily Mirror: “There are British and American special forces on the ground in Syria and Iraq and they may have sight of the aftermath.

“And Reaper drones have incredibly sophisticated surveillance capability and the ability to be above a site for many hours, watching and providing analysis.

“Battle damage analysis and pre-strike assessment may not be absolutely perfect but they are the best in the world and the most transparent.”

An MoD spokeswoman said: “After every British airstrike we conduct detailed battle damage assessment, which thoroughly examines the outcome of the strike against its target, be it Daesh fighters, weapons, or bases.

“This assessment also looks very carefully at whether or not there has been any civilian casualty or damage to civilian infrastructure.”

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