Led coalition ‘probably’ had role in Mosul civilian casualties

Townsend said USA personnel have inspected the site to conduct tests and gather information. He added that the rules of engagement adopted by Iraqi troops and the coalition had not changed.

Standing atop a pile of broken concrete and electrical wires, Fatih Abdullah joined a growing list of Mosul residents who have lost relatives to airstrikes believed to be carried out by the global coalition fighting ISIS or Iraqi forces.

Central Command told the House Armed Services Committee today that Centcom will get to the truth of reports surrounding a March 17 coalition strike in Mosul, Iraq, targeting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria terrorists that allegedly killed as many as 200 civilians. That is where Iraqi forces along with the US coalition are in a battle to retake the city from ISIS.

It’s equally important that USA and Iraqi forces minimize further civilian casualties as they reclaim the remaining, densely populated areas of Mosul still held by the Islamic State.

His comments echo those of coalition commander Gen. Stephen Townsend who acknowledged in a terse back and forth with reporters on Tuesday that the U.S. A spokesman for the Joint Operations command of the US-backed Iraqi forces said that the troops are now besieging Islamic State members stationed at central Mosul’s Grand Nuri Mosque where the founder of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of the caliphate in 2014.

A top USA commander has said that the coalition fighting ISIS “probably” had a role in the strike that residents said killed more than 100 civilians. Iraq’s military command has also blamed the militants for rigging a building with explosives to cause civilian casualties, but some local residents and witnesses have little doubt it collapsed due to an air strike.

However, he said the level of damage and the extent of casualties showed that the deadly strike was not entirely Washington’s fault. He revealed that in his neighborhood alone, dozens of civilians, including children, are killed on a daily basis.

“And, so, I think what’s important after ISIS is defeated, is the government of Iraq has to reach out to these groups of people and make sure they feel like they have a future in part, you know, in the Iraqi state”.

An Iraqi air force helicopter fires missiles against ISIS militants during a battle in Mosul, March 17, 2017.

One line of investigation is whether ISIS rigged explosives that ultimately caused the blast that destroyed buildings.

“I believe as we move into these urban environments, it is going to become more and more hard to apply an extraordinarily high standard for certain things we are doing, although we will try”, he said.

According to two residents and a lawmaker, the air strike may have hit a truck bomb leading to a blast that collapsed buildings in the area.

Todenhofer said he was told that “at least 600 IS fighters now [act] as sleepers in eastern Mosul” and those, who are now fighting in the western part of the city, could flee to the desert and they would be “joined by the young people, who lost their homes and their families“. “The brutality and cruelty of the [ISIS] do not absolve the USA and its allies of responsibility to care for civilians; indeed, the coalition’s duty to harm as few civilians as possible is even greater because of it”, the group said in a statement.

Both the Iraqi and U.S. defense departments have launched investigations into possible civilian deaths in airstrikes between March 17 and 23.

The Pentagon, however, does not plan to change the way it conducts airstrikes, even as the fighting enters more densely populated urban areas.

Iraqi authorities and coalition commanders have denied using excessive force in western Mosul and both have launched investigations into reports of their involvement in causing mass civilian casualties.