Iraqi security forces said Saturday that new tactics would be needed in the battle to recapture western Mosul from ISIS in order to keep civilians out of harm’s way.
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While losing the city will be a decisive blow, the jihadi organisation is expected to pose a renewed threat in the form of an insurgency war against Iraqi forces. One large dwelling housed 17 people from six different families, including the family of the homeowner who took them all in, he said.
The US-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq has taken every measure to protect civilians and will investigate reports of civilian deaths during an operation in Mosul, a US general involved in the operation said today.
We are stunned by this bad loss of life and wish to express our deepest condolences to the many families who have reportedly been impacted by this tragedy.
The area was crowded as, according to the Iraqis there, ISIS militants had forced them into the area, Hennessy-Fiske said. Al-Jabouri is a prominent Sunni Muslim politician in Iraq.
The offensive was briefly put on hold after local officials and residents in west Mosul said suspected US-led coalition air raids last week had killed scores of civilians at the ISIL-held al-Jadida district.
RT: ISIS is reportedly using this tactic when they go on the roof top of civilian buildings, they lure in the bombers, and then bombs destroy this civilian housing.
He blamed the US -led coalition and federal police for using excessive force and called for an emergency session of parliament to address the incident.
A spokesman told MailOnline: ‘We are aware of reports [of civilian casualties] and will support the coalition investigation as required’.
The defense departments from both Iraq and the United States launched investigations Saturday into airstrikes between March 17 and 23 and the civilian deaths.
Officials reported details of yesterday’s strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports. Basically, because whenever the USA goes up in the air and chooses a certain spot because of a mission they say that everybody in this radius is a terrorist, which is not the case here in Mosul. Analysts have said that with residents fed up after almost three years of brutal Islamic State rule, the operation to retake the city presents an opportunity to reset relations between the majority Sunni city and the government in Baghdad – essential for preventing extremism.
Meanwhile, the United Nations says about 400,000 civilians are still trapped in the western, ISIS-held part of Mosul.
The US-backed offensive to drive ISIL out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured most of the city.
These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIS terrorist group and the threat it poses to Iraq, Syria, the region and the wider worldwide community.
Civilians are increasingly bearing the brunt as fighting intensifies for the remaining areas of west Mosul still held by ISIL.
Civilians, humanitarian and monitoring officials are warning of increased civilian casualties in western Mosul due to the increased reliance on airstrikes and artillery. His daughter’s mother-in-law, sitting nearby in a field as they awaited a bus to a displaced persons camp, said her daughter’s west Mosul home was also targeted in an airstrike.
An Iraqi brigadier general said that strikes had damaged more than 27 residential buildings and that three of them were completely destroyed. “The kids get exhausted and if they cry it’s very hard”, Hala Jaber of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Thursday. “They are using them as shields”, he said in November 2015.
In Syria, renewed fighting in the northern and western suburbs of Damascus is threatening a new humanitarian disaster. Most of their relatives live in the Old City, Abu Adnan said.
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“Many people get killed because of the airstrikes”, said his brother and neighbor, Atheer Ghazi, 55, adding that he would prefer to see soldiers fighting in the streets.
