US-led coalition not protecting civilians: Amnesty International
Residents carry the bodies of several people killed during fighting between Iraq security forces and Islamic State militants on the western side of Mosul, Iraq.APBy Yaron Steinbuch-March 28, 2017 | 4:22pm
A recent surge in the number of civilian casualties in Mosul suggests that the US-led coalition is not doing enough to protect the citizens during its campaign to defeat ISIS in Iraq, Amnesty International said Tuesday.
The human-rights group cited an “alarming pattern of US-led coalition airstrikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside,” CBS News reported.
Failure to take precautions to prevent civilian casualties would result in a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” the group said.
Amnesty International’s report followed a March 17 strike in the al-Jadida district of west Mosul that may have killed more than 100 civilians. The group also cited a second strike Saturday that it said killed “up to 150 people.”
Meanwhile, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said Tuesday that at least 307 civilians had been killed and 273 wounded in western Mosul since Feb. 17.
He said the extremists have been herding people into booby-trapped buildings to be used as human shields.
“This is an enemy that ruthlessly exploits civilians to serve its own ends, and clearly has not even the faintest qualm about deliberately placing them in danger,” he said, Reuters reported. “It is vital that the Iraqi security forces and their coalition partners avoid this trap.”
US officials are investigating the credibility of the claims of civilian casualties in Iraq’s second city.
The death toll among Mosul’s mostly Sunni population could be one of the worst since the 2003 US-led invasion, raising questions about Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government’s ability to avoid alienating the city’s mostly Sunni population.
“It is very possible that Daesh blew up that building to blame it on the coalition in order to cause a delay in the offensive on Mosul and cause a delay in the use of coalition airstrikes,” Milley said, using an Arabic term for ISIS, Reuters reported.
“It is possible that a coalition airstrike did it. We don’t know yet. There are investigators on the ground,” he added.
Iraqi troops have retaken eastern Mosul and are pushing through the west but have faced tough resistance around the Old City, where narrow streets and dense housing force close-quarters battles.
Thousands of civilians have been fleeing the fighting but as many as half a million may be trapped inside the embattled city.
In January, Iraq declared the eastern half of Mosul “fully liberated.” Iraqi forces are now fighting to retake the western half.
