Smoke rises over the city during clashes between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, in Mosul, Iraq March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily
David Iaconangelo, CSM: Airstrikes in Mosul kill civilians: Are US rules of engagement getting slacker?
Iraqi officers say they're suspending operations against ISIS in Mosul after US-led airstrikes killed as many as 137 civilians this week.
Residents of the Iraqi city of Mosul say a series of airstrikes carried out there in recent weeks by the US-led coalition against the Islamic State could have killed as many as 200 civilians, in what would be the highest civilian death toll in a US-led air campaign since the peak of the Iraq war.
Iraqi rescue workers Saturday were combing through the rubble of a building where residents say as many as 137 civilians were killed in a single airstrike last week, in a part of the city now under coalition control, reported the Washington Post. The US military said it was investigating “conflicting allegations” regarding a strike that occurred sometime between March 17 and March 23.
"We will continue to assess the allegations and determine what if any role a coalition strike may have had in that area,” it said in a statement.
Iraqi Brig. Gen. Mohammed Mahmoud, Mosul’s civil defense chief, told the Washington Post that the building was clearly hit by an airstrike.
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WNU Editor: The answer is yes (rules of engagement have gotten easier). From my vantage point .... the U.S. has definitely increased the tempo in conducting drone/air/and ground strikes .... and this started within a week after the U.S. Presidential inauguration in January.
Update: Yup .... War Correspondents Describe Recent US Airstrikes in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen (The Intercept)
1 comment:
I read somewere there was a report of 123 US airstrikes in 12 days in Raqaa alone. That is no joke gloves off use airpower for effect. Not sorties a trick the previous used to use to mislead but actual strikes lead on heads.
The ground tactics have changed aswell.
I hope in the end of all this the Kurds are supported and maybe even cobbled together into some kind of state. They are a capable potential ally that supports a culture that can work with the west. Turkey under their current leader is just falling further and further away turning into another 3rd world ME bucket were the state propped culture is incompatible with western democracy/capitalism/freedom.
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