The Dutch government has admitted that a bomb dropped by a Dutch -16 fighter killed 70 civilians in an airstrike in Northern Iraq.
In a letter to parliament, the Dutch Defense Ministry wrote that an airstrike targeting an alleged Islamic State (IS) bomb factory in northern Iraq killed about 70 people, including IS fighters and civilians.
On June 2 2015, a bomb dropped by a Dutch F-16 fighter hit the bomb factory in Hawija, near the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, on the night of June 2, 2015.
Defense Minister, Anna Bijleveld-Schouten, wrote that "intelligence available to the Netherlands did not anticipate civilian deaths because there were no civilians living in the area near the target."
The Defense Ministry said that Dutch F-16s flew about 2,100 raids over Iraq as part of the anti-IS coalition between October 2014 and 2018.
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