Defense Minister launches new investigation into 2015 Hawija bombing
Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans has launched a new investigation into the conduct of the detachment commander responsible for the 2015 airstrike on Hawija, Iraq, after long-lost video footage of the bombing resurfaced, NOS reports. The strike, aimed at an Islamic State weapons facility, killed at least 70 civilians.
Brekelmans informed the Tweede Kamer in a letter Friday that the Ministry of Defense will examine the commander’s failure to report potential civilian casualties following the attack. The decision follows criticism from former minister Winnie Sorgdrager, who led an independent inquiry into the strike and said the commander’s report omitted key facts, resulting in an “inaccurate representation” of the bombing's impact.
According to Sorgdrager’s commission, the commander should have documented the likelihood of civilian casualties in the aftermath report. He did not. “That commander states that he did not include the suspicion of civilian casualties in his report because he would only do so if he were certain,” Sorgdrager said last week on Nieuwsuur. “We must uncover the truth.”
The Volkskrant reported last week that one of the key videos of the bombing, showing destruction in Hawija a day after the attack, had been lost. It resurfaced only after the newspaper published an article about its disappearance.
Sorgdrager, upon seeing the footage, said the commander “was not truthful” about the potential for civilian deaths. Although suspicions of noncombatant fatalities were relayed to The Hague at the time, they were not included in official documentation.
Despite the serious findings, Brekelmans rejected a recommendation from the Sorgdrager commission to question military personnel under oath about the newly discovered video footage. In his letter to lawmakers, he wrote that such testimony is only permissible in a criminal investigation or by entities legally authorized to conduct it, such as the Tweede Kamer or the Dutch Safety Board (Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid, OVV). However, Dutch law prohibits the OVV from investigating military conduct during conflict.
“Every defense employee is in any case obligated to cooperate with investigations and to tell the truth,” Brekelmans wrote. Refusing to disclose information may be considered “(serious) dereliction of duty,” he added.
The minister agreed to make one of the resurfaced videos public on April 16. That footage zooms in on the actual airstrike. A second video that zooms out to show the broader destruction in the surrounding area will not be released to the public, although it has been shown to members of the Tweede Kamer.
At the time of the attack, the commander was in charge of the Dutch detachment carrying out the strike. He is now a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Defense. During questioning by the Sorgdrager commission years after the bombing, the commander claimed that the video did not show severe damage to residential areas. That statement has since proven false.
Sorgdrager published her commission’s final report at the end of January following years of investigation. Weeks later, the missing videos emerged. She called the delayed discovery “a very serious matter.”
