LONDON (Dispatches) – British drones and jets have dropped more than 3,400 bombs and missiles in Iraq and Syria, an investigation by Middle East Eye has revealed, yet London maintains that there is "no evidence" they have killed a single civilian.
The vast quantities of ordnance dropped since the start of Operation Shader in 2014 seriously undermines the claim by ministers that the Royal Air Force (RAF) has not caused any civilian casualties in the three-year-long bombing campaign.
The Ministry of Defense does not routinely release statistics on the numbers of weapons used over Iraq and Syria, but an MEE analysis has combined weekly updates of operations in the region and information collated by campaign group Drone Wars.
It shows that up to the end of September, UK forces had dropped at least 3,482 bombs and missiles, including 2,089 Paveway IV bombs and 486 Brimstone missiles from Typhoon and Tornado jets.
RAF Reaper drones have also fired 724 Hellfire missiles at alleged Daesh targets.
The figures are conservative as MoD updates sometimes do not specify the number of bombs or missiles used in a strike, and Friday night MoD officials admitted that a further 86 bombs and missiles had been dropped in recent weeks.
The weapon of choice for RAF jets is the Paveway IV precision-guided bomb, but they have also fired large numbers of the more accurate Brimstone missile, which was originally designed as an anti-tank weapon but has been used extensively by the RAF to allegedly target Daesh snipers and vehicles.
A spike in weapons releases came earlier this summer, when RAF Typhoons and Tornadoes joined efforts to liberate Mosul.
Daesh regularly used "human shields" in built-up areas, but despite this and the scale of the ordnance dropped by the RAF, the MoD maintains it has "no evidence" that its strikes have caused any civilian casualties - a position now roundly rejected by defense analysts and opposition parties.
Earlier this month, the minister of state for the British armed forces, Mark Lancaster, told parliament that the government "had been able to discount RAF involvement in any civilian casualties."
The RAF says it takes all steps to minimize civilian casualties, but it has conducted more than 1,600 strikes in Iraq and Syria - more than any other coalition country except the U.S.
Reacting to the figures, military aviation experts and campaigners have said that it is no longer credible for the MoD to maintain that has not killed any civilians.
Samuel Oakford, a spokesperson for Airwars, a group that monitors civilian casualties from international airstrikes in the region, told MEE: "The UK's claim that no British airstrikes in Iraq or Syria have led to civilian deaths has always been difficult to believe.”
Over the course of the last 12 months the focus of the air battle has shifted from the Iraqi city of Mosul, which fell in July, to Raqqah in Syria.
But MEE analysis shows that the overwhelming majority of RAF weapons released took place in Iraq with 3,000 strikes, while a total of 482 bombs and missiles were dropped over Syria, prompting fears of blowback in the UK.
"Turning a blind eye to the consequences of airstrikes and pretending they are somehow now 'risk free' is naive in the extreme," said Chris Cole, director of campaign Drone Wars UK.
"Unless we begin to understand and acknowledge the true cost of our ongoing wars in the Middle East, we are likely to pay a high price in the future."
Airwars, which works with the RAF and U.S. Air Force to report suspected civilian casualties, says that at least 5,600 civilians have been killed by the U.S. and its allies in airstrikes.
In July there were reports that Iraqi soldiers used bulldozers to hide the bodies of hundreds of civilians killed in the final days of the battle for Mosul.
MEE's analysis shows that during the fight for the Iraqi city, RAF Typhoons and Tornadoes dropped dozens of Paveway IV bombs in the city.
The RAF says it takes "all possible precautions to avoid civilian casualties", but Amnesty International has previously expressed serious concerns about the air war's toll on civilians. In a report earlier this year, it found the battle for West Mosul had caused a "civilian catastrophe."