Civilian deaths halt Mosul strikes
IRAQ: The United States military said yesterday a US-led coalition strike had hit an Islamic State-held area of Iraq’s Mosul where residents and officials say as many as 200 civilians may have been killed as a result of an air raid.
The American confirmation followed a decision by Iraqi government forces to pause their drive to recapture west Mosul yesterday because of the high rate of civilian casualties, a security forces spokesman said, a move apparently motivated by the incident.
With fighting intensifying to recapture Mosul, about half a million civilians remain in Islamic State-held areas in the west of the city, complicating use of air strikes and heavy artillery to drive the hardline militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq.
Iraqi forces are pushing into Mosul’s Old City, where fleeing residents say militants are hiding among the civilian population, sheltering in family homes and using the narrow alleyways and streets to their advantage.
What happened in the incident on March 17 in Mosul al-Jadida district is still unclear. Some residents say a coalition air strike hit an explosive-filled truck, detonating a blast that collapsed buildings packed with families.
US military officials say they are investigating, but initial reports from residents and Iraqi officials in the past week said dozens of people had been killed after air strikes by US-led coalition forces.
Mosul municipality chief, Abdul Sattar al-Habbo, who is supervising the rescue, said 240 bodies had been pulled from the rubble of collapsed buildings. Previous estimates from local officials had said about 130 people had died.
The United Nations also expressed its profound concern, saying it was ‘‘stunned by this terrible loss of life’’.
US Central Command, which oversees US military Middle East operations, said a review determined that US-led coalition operation, requested by the Iraqi government, had struck Islamic State fighters and equipment ‘‘at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties’’.
The exact cause of the collapses was not clear but a local lawmaker and two residents said on Friday the air strikes may have detonated an Isis truck filled with explosives, destroying buildings heavily-populated area.
Up to 600,000 civilians are still believed to remain in Isis-held areas of Mosul. Residents escaping besieged western Mosul have told of Iraqi and US-led coalition air strikes demolishing buildings and killing civilians in several cases.
The insurgents have also used civilians as human shields and opened fire on them as they try to escape Islamic State-held neighbourhoods, fleeing residents said.
‘‘The recent high death toll among civilians inside the Old City forced us to halt operations to review our plans,’’ a police spokesman said.
’’It’s a time for weighing new offensive plans and tactics. No combat operations are to go on.’’
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The offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured the entire eastern side of Mosul and about half of the west.
But advances have stuttered in the last two weeks as fighting enters the alleys of the Old City, home to the al-Nuri mosque where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr alBaghdadi declared a caliphate spanning large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
‘‘We need to make sure that taking out Daesh (Isis) from the Old City will not cost unwanted high casualties among civilians,’’ the police spokesman said.
‘‘We need surgical accurate operations to target terrorists without causing collateral damage among residents,’’ he said.
– Reuters