General: U.S. ‘probably had a role’ in 200 Iraqi deaths

WASHINGTON — The top U.S. general commanding the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria said that the U.S.-led coalition was probably responsible for a blast that killed more than 200 people.

“If we did it, and I would say there’s at least a fair chance that we did, it was an unintentional accident of war, and we will transparently report it to you,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend told reporters Tuesday via teleconference from Baghdad.

Townsend made the comments in response to witness reports that an airstrike brought down a large apartment block and killed scores of civilians, including women and children, in west Mosul’s Jadidah neighborhood on March 17. If confirmed, the death toll would be among the worst civilian casualty counts for a U.S. military strike in decades.

“My initial assessment is that we probably had a role in these casualties,” Townsend said. “What we don’t know for certain is whether that strike is responsible for the casualties in question.”

“The fact that the whole building collapsed contradicts our involvement,” he said. “The munition that we used should not have collapsed an entire building. So that’s one of those things we’re trying to figure out in the investigative process.”

U.S. and Iraqi investigators have been dispatched to the scene to sift through the rubble and talk to survivors to try to discover what happened. The Iraqi military said their forces were under fire from Islamic State snipers and called for an airstrike, which was followed by a massive explosion.

The Iraqis said over the weekend that evidence suggested that Islamic State militants had rigged a house with explosives and used a car bomb to bring the apartment block down.

The focus of the U.S. investigation, led by Air Force Brig. Gen. Matthew Isler, is whether the airstrike hit the civilian buildings, reducing them to rubble; or whether an accumulation of airstrikes in the area degraded the structural integrity of buildings before they fell; or whether an explosion, either accidental or planted by Islamic State, brought down the structures.

“It could have been a combination of these events,” Townsend said.

He confirmed that warplanes had launched several strikes in the area in recent weeks.

The incident in Jadidah is the latest of several bombing attacks in which dozens of civilians are alleged to have been killed by U.S. forces.

Airwars, a Londonbased nonprofit organization that monitors civilian deaths from air raids, said the number of civilian casualties has surged as the battle has entered west Mosul, with more than 1,000 claimed fatalities so far this month.

The increase in incidents in Iraq and Syria has humanitarian groups deeply concerned.

The Center for Civilians in Conflict, a Washingtonbased advocacy and research group, said in a statement Tuesday that there is a “clear and urgent need” for orders to explicitly make the protection of civilians critical on the battlefield.