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Defence Minister Marise Payne has vowed there will be no pause in Australian air strikes against the so-called Islamic State as an investigation is carried out into the accidental bombing of at least 60 Syrian soldiers.
"We will continue in an appropriate, measured way with the international coalition, to do what is required, but there has been no hold as such put on Australia activity," Senator Payne said on Monday.
Senator Payne declined to give any detail as to the nature of the RAAF's involvement in the coalition mission that mistakenly targeted Syrian soldiers instead of Islamic State fighters as intended during a bombing raid in north-west Syria at the weekend.
The New York Times, however, was on Monday attributing the bombing itself to US aircraft. That leaves the possibility that an Australian Wedgetail command plane – which acts as a sort of information mothership to allied military assets – was involved or that RAAF Hornets were part of the strike team but did not release weapons.
Senator Payne echoed a Defence statement the previous day in pointedly saying that the coalition had been "tracking" what they believed was an Islamic State fighting position "for some time".
This could suggest that there was simply a fundamental intelligence failure from the fusion of information from drones, satellites, signal intelligence from sources such as mobile phones and informants on the ground.
The US has said it told Russia - Syria's military allies - that it planned to bomb in the area in a process known as "deconfliction", though Fairfax Media understands this process is often rudimentary.
Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said his best estimate was that Australia's Wedgetail command and control plane was involved rather than Hornet fighter planes.
"This is obviously sensitive because that is the asset which essentially is giving targetting information to the fighters," he said.
The air strikes, which have further undermined an already fraying ceasefire between the regime of Bashar al-Assad and anti-regime rebels, are now being investigated by the US-led coalition.
Senator Payne also said the blunder would not deter Australia in the longer term from continuing the fight against the Islamic State.
"The Australian government's commitment is absolute and continuing," she said.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, speaking in New York, expressed regret for the Syrian soldiers' deaths during the action in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, but hinted there were blatant "contradictions" in Russia's vocal anger following the attacks.
Russia called a crisis United Nations meeting following the air strikes in stark contrast to the dismissive way it has responded to criticisms of its own bombing raids that have shown scant regard for civilians.
South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon called for an independent Australian inquiry to "ensure this doesn't happen again".
Former chief of air force Geoff Shepherd said it was likely a "time-critical target" in which the "fog of war" meant that imperfect intelligence had led to a "tragic mistake".
"If we're going to be effective there has to be a small element of risk taken," he said. "If we're going to reduce collateral damage to zero … then you'd have to start to wonder if we're going to be effective or just do token operations to look good on the international stage," he said.
