United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Practice Relating to Rule 13. Area Bombardment
The UK LOAC Pamphlet (1981) stipulates that “area bombardment is an example of an indiscriminate attack” and is, as such, prohibited.
The UK LOAC Manual (2004) states:
The following are examples of indiscriminate attacks:
a. “an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects”.
In 2003, during a debate in the House of Commons, the UK Secretary of State for Defence stated:
Coalition operations are clearly continuing. I made that clear in my statement, and I do not think that any Member of the House would expect me to anticipate the nature of those operations save to say that whatever targets are addressed will be targets associated with Saddam Hussein’s regime. I made that clear yesterday to the House, and I repeat it again today. We will not engage in indiscriminate so-called carpet bombing. Each of the targets will be individually addressed and attacked.