media investigation: people were murdered in Iraq by an EU country.

The Netherlands has decided to release previously classified information about its air sorties in Iraq and Syria, after media exposed false claims that no civilians were killed in a 2016 strike by the European nation on a building in Mosul, Iraq. The database, released on Thursday, details Dutch F-16 missions between October 2014 and December 2018, which were part of Operation Inherent Resolve, a US-led military campaign against Islamic State (IS). It disclosed over 2,200 weapon deployments relating to over 600 airstrikes. The Dutch Ministry of Defence also pledged to conduct its own investigation into suspected killings of civilians by anti-IS coalition forces. The move was in reaction to an exposé published on the same day by the Dutch public broadcaster NOS, its current affairs program Nieuwsuur, and the newspaper NRC, which provides evidence that at least seven civilians, including a three-year-old girl, were killed in a Dutch airstrike at a residential building in Mosul on March 22, 2016.

The raid was previously detailed in a 2017 assessment by the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which claimed that the building was used by IS militants as a military headquarters and that no civilians were allowed into the building. Dutch media research, conducted with the help of Airwars, found eyewitnesses who contradicted the US account. Residents of the building said militants were present in the neighborhood because they had their wives and children housed in the homes of people who'd fled from Mosul, but they never detected any military activity. The Dutch government deflected accusations of underreporting civilian casualties, after national media reported in 2019 that at least 70 non-combatants had been killed in a 2015 air strike on the Iraqi city of Hawija. Prime Minister Mark Rutte referred to CENTCOM at the time, stating that they had “all the knowledge and experience” to make assessments authoritatively.