LONDON: The Danish Defense Ministry is starting a probe into NATO-led airstrikes on Libya in 2011 in which Denmark’s air force killed fourteen civilians.
It is the first time that any of the ten nations involved in the NATO campaign to remove former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi from power has admitted potential involvement in the killing of civilians.
The ten countries, including 6 from Europe, took part in NATO’s Operation Unified Protector, which lasted 6 months in 2011.
The campaign led to the collapse of the Qaddafi regime but resulted in over a decade of instability in Libya, which remains divided to this day.
Denmark’s aerial bombardment
Danish aerial bombardment resulted in the killing of civilians in two incidents. The first, an airstrike on Surman, west of Tripoli, killed twelve civilians — including 5 children and 6 members of one family — in June 2011.
In September that year, a Danish attack on an apartment block in Sirte killed 2 civilians — a man and a pregnant woman.
The site was hit over unconfirmed reports that snipers had set up on the rooftop.
Documents show that Denmark had privately understood from as early as 2012 that its military may have been involved in civilian killings underlined in a UN commission and by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
But its decision to avoid acknowledging the issue publicly prevented relatives of the slain civilians from seeking legal redress.
The Danish Defense Ministry said in a statement that the minister of defense has requested the Defense Command to assess whether the documents in question indicate that there were ramifications of such magnitude that a probe should have been launched at that time within the coalition or NATO framework.
One newly released document from 2012, detailing Denmark’s response to the United Nations commission’s findings on the Surman and Sirte attacks, said that civilian casualties cannot be ruled out.
