After Mosul carnage, protect Raqqa civilians
Iraqi forces have retaken Mosul in Iraq as U.S.-backed Syrian forces close in on Raqqa, the last major urban stronghold still held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The outcome of the larger struggle is not in doubt: ISIS will be militarily defeated. The key remaining question is how many civilians trapped in Raqqa will die in the process. The world must protect as many of them as possible.
Civilians in both cities suffered under ISIS cruelty for years, and the stories of survivors lucky enough to reach relative safety are harrowing. Last month, when I was in northern Iraq, I spoke to a woman who had just made it out of ISIS-controlled West Mosul. She told me about the hard choices she and countless other families have to make.
If they decide to stay or are unable to leave, they face daily ISIS brutality, U.S.-led air strikes that can kill hundreds of civilians at a time, imprecise artillery fire from Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces, food shortages, lack of clean water and non-existent medical care.
Those who leave — as she eventually did when her children faced starvation — encounter sniper fire and booby-traps planted along the way by ISIS, coalition airstrikes on fleeing convoys, and arbitrary detention of young men whom Iraqi or Kurdish forces suspect of ISIS sympathies.
We cannot simply blame ISIS for the rising death toll of civilians; civilian deaths and injuries from coalition actions play into their contorted agenda. The U.S.supported coalition has an obliga- tion and an opportunity to better protect civilians from its own actions and those of ISIS. Failing to do so undermines operational success and risks strategic failure.
Defense Secretary James Mattis recently said the U.S. anti-ISIS strategy would shift from “attrition” to “annihilation” of ISIS forces. The U.S. and its allies should choose protection over annihilation. There are good reasons for this. The first is legal. International law requires parties to a conflict to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians, and the use of intense air strikes and artillery rounds in populated areas may be deemed illegal.
Second, if the costs of winning back Mosul and Raqqa are high civilian deaths and destruction, civilians may be unwilling to recognize the legitimacy of the postISIS order — and the seeds of cyclical violence, retribution and the rebirth of ISIS, or something even worse, will be sown. The bottom line is that ISIS wants civilian deaths. The U.S. and its partners should know better and not give that to them.
To avoid civilian carnage in Raqqa, use of air power and artillery should be strictly limited and safe corridors for civilians should be established. Specific operations to safely extract civilians should be considered, when feasible. As much as possible, shift the heavy fighting to unpopulated or lightly populated areas.
The world owes it to trapped civilians, and to the hope of a peaceful future for this troubled region, to do everything in its power to bring them to safety.