THE UK took part in an airstrike that accidentally killed Syrian troops fighting Daesh, the MoD has admitted.
The joint Western coalition forces attack around Deir ez-Zour was supposed to have targeted frontline forces of Daesh.
But Russia said the strikes, involving RAF Reaper Drones, had killed 62 Syrian soldiers and injured about a hundred others.
The Syrian Government has described the bombing as “on purpose and planned in advance”.
The British military said it was co-operating fully with an investigation but insisted it had not intentionally targeted troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
Australian, Danish and US air forces were also involved in the raid.
In a joint statement, coalition members insisted they had informed their Russian counterparts of the planned attack. An MoD spokesman said: “We can confirm that the UK participated in the recent coalition airstrike in Syria, south of Deir ez-Zour on Saturday, and we are fully cooperating with the coalition investigation.
“The UK would not intentionally target Syrian military units. It would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage.”
Brendan O’Hara MP, SNP defence spokesman, said: “The SNP has been clear from day one that the UK was entering a complex war and the need for transparency is essential. The UK Government’s military campaign in Syria has been shrouded in secrecy and controversy – so I hope the investigation will come up with the facts we need to ensure this awful incident is not repeated.”
Hours after the UK’s admission, a convoy of trucks bringing aid to the region of Aleppo was bombed, with the Red Cross saying at least ten had died in the strike. Early reports suggested the director of Syria’s Red Crescent had been killed in the attack, which was blamed on Russian and Syrian forces.
Syria’s seven-day-old fractured truce has now cracked completely, with Assad’s forces claiming the ceasefire is over, blaming anti-government terrorist groups and international opponents.
The deal was brokered by the Russians and Americans last week, and the US had earlier insisted the broader agreement held, but Moscow claimed it would be “senseless” for Assad to respect the deal.
Many besieged towns had been cut off from aid supplies until two days ago.
Two convoys of 20 trucks of aid were due to leave the Turkish border at dawn today to arrive in eastern Aleppo later this afternoon.
But last night, after the Syrian military released a statement saying they had ended the “freeze on fighting” – blaming “armed terrorist groups” and international opponents of the Assad regime – bombing campaigns in Aleppo, Idlib, Daraa, and the Damascus suburbs resumed.
US Secretary of State John Kerry appealed to Moscow to try and rein in the Syrians.
He leads a meeting of International Syria Support Group meeting in New York today.
Since the conflict began in 2011, an estimated 500,000 people have been killed and 1.9 million injured.
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