20120730
Islam Times
Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has revealed that the country’s Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots operated US drones in the invasion of Libya in 2011.


The revelations come as the UK government had insisted that no British drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) were involved in the invasion of Libya or have been used outside of Afghanistan. Moreover, the disclosure comes ten months after the end of the NATO-led invasion of Libya.

The revelations slipped out in a parliamentary answer as the MoD admitted that RAF personnel embedded within a US unit had operated "armed Remotely Piloted Air Systems missions" in Libya in 2011.

In April 2011, the US announced its deployment of UAV’s above Libya that launched many missile strikes against buildings.

The Pentagon said Predator drones operated 145 air strikes in Libya between April and October. It is apparently unknown how many missions were flown by British forces or how many targets were hit by them.

“The fact that it has been revealed that UK personnel controlled armed drones in the Libyan conflict last year - despite the repeated insistence by the MoD that the UK has only ever operated armed drones in Afghanistan - underlines the need for much greater transparency from the MoD about their use of drones”, Chris Cole, founder of the website Drone Wars UK, said in an interview with the Guardian.