AMSTERDAM — A Dutch air strike against an alleged Islamic State bomb factory in northern Iraq in 2015 killed about 70 people, including civilians and IS fighters, the Dutch Defence Ministry said on Monday. The government of the Netherlands had not previously provided a detailed estimate of the number of deaths in Hawija, near the city of Kirkuk. The facility was on an industrial site and “intelligence available to the Netherlands did not anticipate civilians deaths because there were no civilians living in the area near the target,” it said. The incidents in Mosul and Hawija were investigated by Dutch prosecutors who did not find grounds for further prosecution, a statement said. Dutch F-16s flew around 2,100 raids over Iraq as part of the anti-IS coalition between October 2014 and 2018, the ministry said.

Source: National Post November 04, 2019 13:18 UTC