Australian military admits culpability for deaths of Iraqi civilians

CANBERRA, March 29 (Xinhua) -- The Australian military has admitted that the allegations it killed two Iraqi civilians in 2017 are "credible."

According to an Australian Associated Press (AAP) report on Thursday, Australian Defence Force (ADF) Major General Greg Bilton told journalists at a briefing that "on the balance of probabilities" two Iraqi adults were killed and two children were wounded by an Australian air strike in 2017.

It is just the second time that the ADF has acknowledged that Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) bombs may have killed civilians.

The incident occurred when a RAAF Super Hornet plane dropped a precision bomb on an Islamic State (IS) sniper nest in Mosul on May 3.

However, it wasn't until Amnesty International raised the matter in late August that a coalition of nations, led by the U.S., opened an investigation into the deaths.

Bilton briefed journalists ahead of the release of the final report on the incident, saying it was possible that the victims were a family being used by IS soldiers as human shields.

"On the balance of probabilities, our strike resulted in the death of two people and the injury of two others," he said.

"We deeply regret the loss of civilians."

Despite the deaths, two separate investigations found that the pilot had followed the laws of war and no mistakes had been made.

"There are no specific lessons we have learned from this strike that we can apply to improve our processes," Bilton said.

He said there were currently no other active investigations into civilian deaths involving the ADF but could not definitively rule out more investigations in the future. Enditem