Mosul exodus as air strikes kill ‘dozens’
US opens probe ‘to determine the facts’ about the air raid that allegedly killed 130
Air strikes have killed dozens of civilians in west Mosul in recent days, officials said yesterday, as the number of people fleeing fighting against terrorists in the area topped 200,000.
Hundreds of thousands more are still in danger in the city. Both Iraqi aircraft and those from the US-led coalition are carrying out strikes in the Mosul area, but neither side has admitted responsiblity for the recent civilian deaths.
Nawfal Hammadi, governor of Nineveh, said the coalition had carried out the strikes in the Mosul Al Jadida area, killing “more than 130 civilians.”
The US military acknowledged yesterday that US aircraft struck the area. US Central Command said that it took the allegation seriously and has opened an investigation “to determine the facts surrounding this strike and the validity of the allegation of civilian casualties.”
At least 16 people were killed on Friday night in air strikes on a prison in the rebel-held city of Idlib in northwest Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said yesterday.
It said the dead included prisoners and prison guards, but did not have an immediate breakdown of the toll.
The strikes were believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes, which have been flying sorties in support of President Bashar Al Assad’s government since Moscow began a military intervention in September 2015.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.
It added that guards opened fire in the aftermath of the strike on fleeing prisoners, and there were initial reports of additional casualties in that fire.
Idlib city became the second provincial capital to fall from government control when it was captured in March 2015 by the Army of Conquest, an alliance led by former Al Qaida affiliate Al Nusra Front, later known as Fateh Al Sham.