A Dutch F-16 jet serving with the US-led coalition in Iraq killed about 70 people – civilians including children in an air strike in 2015, the defense ministry says.

A bomb dropped by a Dutch F-16 fighter serving with the US-led coalition operations   on the night of June,2 resulted in around 70 victims, including ISIS members and civilians, The Dutch Defense Minister Anna Bijleveld-Schouten wrote in a letter to parliament on Monday.

"It was unclear precisely how many civilians were killed, but the number of victims was higher than had been anticipated in the night-time raid, partly due to a series of blasts from explosives stored at the building," the letter said.

"After the raid there were a number of secondary and larger explosions that could not have been anticipated from earlier strikes on similar targets, this caused the destruction of a large number of other buildings," it said.

ILKHA