Alan Brown – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alan Brown on 2016-01-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many oil refinery workers have been killed as a result of UK airstrikes in Syria; and whether such workers are classed as civilian.

Penny Mordaunt

Oil workers operating oil production facilities in Daesh-controlled areas are treated as civilians, unless they directly participate in hostilities or otherwise can be shown to be members of Daesh. The UK takes appropriate measures to reduce the risk of collateral damage and we have a robust process in place to positively identify targets before we conduct airstrikes. To date there have been no reports of civilian casualties as a result of RAF airstrikes in Iraq or Syria.