U. S. Investigating Mosul Strikes Said to Have Killed Up to 200 Civilians -
By TIM ARANGO and HELENE COOPERMARCH 24, 2017
BAGHDAD — The American-led military coalition in Iraq said Friday
that it was investigating reports that scores of civilians — perhaps as many as 200, residents said — had been killed in recent American airstrikes in Mosul, the northern Iraqi city at the center of an offensive to drive out the Islamic State.
And the reports of civilian deaths in Mosul came immediately after two recent incidents in Syria, where the coalition is also battling the Islamic State from the air, in which activists
and local residents said dozens of civilians had been killed.
But, he added, the recent spike in numbers “does suggest something has shifted.”
American military officials said that what has shifted is
that the Iraqi military, backed by the American-led coalition, is in the middle of its biggest fight so far — the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
“The repeated mistakes will make the mission to liberate Mosul from Daesh harder,
and will push civilians still living under Daesh to be uncooperative with the security forces,” said Abdulsattar Alhabu, the mayor of Mosul, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
Taken together, the surge of reported civilian deaths raised questions about whether once-strict rules of engagement meant to minimize
civilian casualties were being relaxed under the Trump administration, which has vowed to fight the Islamic State more aggressively.
Col. John J. Thomas, a spokesman for the United States Central Command, said
that the military was seeking to determine whether the explosion in Mosul might have been prompted by an American or coalition airstrike, or was a bomb or booby trap placed by the Islamic State.