And Then There's Iraq

Mosul has been liberated.

Iraq’s U.S.-backed forces wrested Mosul from the Islamic State group at the cost of enormous destruction. The nearly 9-month fight culminated with a crescendo of devastation — the blasting of the historic Old City to root out the deeply dug-in militants.

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Thousands of Mosul families have been left without a home. Schools have been leveled, utility grids wrecked, highways pounded into broken dirt roads. All five of the city’s bridges spanning the Tigris River have been damaged. The main hospital complex where a battle raged for more than a month is a burned out shell. Mosul’s airport looks like a derelict parking lot, booby-trapped with explosives by fleeing IS fighters.

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[W]est of the Tigris, neighborhoods have been rendered into ghost towns. There, coalition strikes killed some 5,805 civilians between Feb. 19 and June 19, according to Airwars, a London-based monitoring group tracking civilian deaths resulting from coalition actions.

Fewer than a tenth of the more than 730,000 people who fled western Mosul have filtered back.

[...]

Nearly a third of the Old City — more than 5,000 buildings — was damaged or destroyed in the final three weeks of bombardment up to July 8, according to a survey by U.N. Habitat using satellite imagery. Across the city, 10,000 buildings were damaged over the course of the war, the large majority in western Mosul, the scene of the most intense artillery, airstrikes and fighting during the past five months. The survey only covers damage visible in satellite photos, meaning the real number is likely higher.

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“If the western half is ignored it will produce a social disaster and this social disaster will create bigger destruction if it’s not addressed,” said Khatab Mohammed al-Najjar, a resident of eastern Mosul who watched the Old City burn from across the Tigris River during the operation.

“West Mosul produced Daesh, and it is very possible it may produce a new Daesh,” he said, referring to west Mosul’s historically more religious and traditional residents.

  TPM

But thank god Saddam Hussein was ousted.

Getting to the Truth

The US-led Coalition has conceded that a supposed ‘ISIS headquarters’ it targeted at Mosul in September 2015 was in fact a family home, noting in its latest civilian casualty release that “four civilians were unintentionally killed and two civilians were unintentionally injured in the building.”

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Despite a record 558 days between the incident and the Coalition’s public admission of error on April 1st, officials had known of possible civilian deaths within hours of the attack.

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Investigative journalists Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal have spent more than a year working closely with family members to secure an admission from the Coalition that it made a deadly error.

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Among the declared targets struck by the US-led alliance on September 20th 2015 were “an ISIL VBIED facility, an ISIL bunker, an ISIL building, [and] an ISIL C2 node.” Now the Coalition says it also conducted “a strike on what was evaluated at the time to be an ISIS headquarters building.”

Instead the home of a middle class family was destroyed. University professor Mohannad Rezzo; his 17-year old son Najib Mohan“Mohannad’s wife, Sana, survived the explosion, which flung her, burned, from her second-floor bedroom to the driveway below.

Mohannad’s older brother, Bassim, also narrowly survived,” US-based relative Zareena Grewal wrote in the New York Times just days after the strike. “Bassim’s pelvis and leg were shattered in the attack and require surgery, but it is his emotional pain that consumes him.”zzo; his brother Bassim’s wife Miyada Rezzo and their 21-year old daughter Tuka Rezzo all died.
  Airwars

We bombed a family home, but the civilian deaths were unintentional.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Mosul War Crimes

The recent spike in civilian casualties suggests the US-led coalition in Iraq is not taking adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths as it battles Isis alongside Iraqi ground forces, according to a report by [Amnesty International] on Tuesday.

The coalition has acknowledged that the US military was behind an airstrike on 17 March that hit a western Mosul neighbourhood. Residents have said at least 150 civilians were killed. US officials have not confirmed that there were civilian casualties but have opened an investigation.

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Amnesty International’s report quoted survivors and eyewitnesses of airstrikes that have killed civilians: “They did not try to flee as the battle got underway because they received repeated instructions from the Iraqi authorities to remain in their homes.”

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Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser at Amnesty International, said: “The fact that Iraqi authorities repeatedly advised civilians to remain at home, instead of fleeing the area, indicates that coalition forces should have known that these strikes were likely to result in a significant numbers of civilian casualties.

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US investigators are also looking at the apparent bombing of a school in Mansura near Raqqa, Syria on 21 March, and a building next to a mosque on 16 March in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.

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On Monday, Iraqi forces said they had launched new assaults in Mosul’s Old City after the high civilian death toll appeared to prompt a change in tactics.

Iraq’s federal police chief, Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat, said new advances, supported by air power, were being aided by “precise targeting of selected positions” provided by intelligence. “Our advance aim is to protect civilian lives, infrastructure and private properties,” he was quoted by state TV as saying.

  The Guardian

"I'm taking bids on that bridge," he may have added.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Closing the Barn Doors After the Horse Is Gone

Iraqi government forces have halted the ongoing offensive to recapture western Mosul from the Islamic State militants due high rate of civilian casualties, according to a security forces spokesman.

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The US-backed offensive to drive IS terrorists out of Mosul was launched little over 5 months ago, and the Iraqi army backed by the coalition airstrikes has been able to recapture most of the city.

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The United Nations on Saturday expressed concern over the high number of civilian casualties in Mosul.

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“The recent high death toll among civilians inside the Old City forced us to halt operations to review our plans. It's a time for weighing new offensive plans and tactics. No combat operations are to go on,” an Iraqi Federal Police spokesman said, as cited by Reuters.
  RT

If not for the continuous photojournalism and reports, particularly this last one of more than 100 200 sheltering people killed and children crying under buildings reduced to rubble with no help arriving, I feel pretty sure they wouldn't even be doing it now.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 3/27:

The US military is deploying an additional 200 troops to Mosul to “advise and assist” Iraqi forces in their bid to retake the city, according to ABC, citing defense officials.

  RT

Further on Mosul Air Strikes

By the time rescuers finally arrived no one was left alive. For almost a week desperate neighbours had scraped through the rubble, searching for as many as 130 people who lay buried after three homes in a west Mosul suburb were destroyed by coalition airstrikes.

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Iraqi officers have been largely responsible for requesting airstrikes, which are then coordinated with US-run operations centres after approval from senior commanders. Coalition air spotters often guide the bombs to designated targets.

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The full picture of the carnage continued to emerge on Friday, when at least 20 bodies were recovered. Dozens more are thought to remain buried in what could turn out to be the single most deadly incident for civilians in the war against Islamic State (Isis).

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Neighbours at the scene said at least 80 bodies had been recovered from one house alone, where people had been encouraged by local elders to take shelter. Rescuers were continuing to dig through the ruins, and the remains of two other houses nearby, which had also been pulverised in attacks that were described as “relentless and horrifying”.

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At the graveyard, Majid al-Najim said: “Is an Isis sniper being on a roof enough of a reason to send a plane with a large bomb to destroy a house? They hit it many times. They wanted to destroy everything inside. “Then after that, we needed equipment to rescue the people. Just one bulldozer. Anything. The corrupt government officials could not help us, and would not if they could. This is an enormous crime.”

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It has raised fresh questions about rules of engagement in the war against the terror group, after two recent US airstrikes in Syria resulted in at least 90 casualties, nearly all of them thought to be civilian.

Residents in Mosul Jadida say no Isis members were hiding among the civilians, although dozens of militants had been attempting to defend the area from an attack by Iraqi special forces.

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“The days after [the strike] were horrible. There were children shouting under the rubble. Nobody came to help them. The police told us yesterday that there was nothing they could do.”

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In a nearby Iraqi base, a special forces major shifted uncomfortably when details of the disaster were relayed to him. “This is not in our area and we know nothing about it,” he said. “We have lost people too, around 20 colleagues fighting an enemy of all the people.” After a while, he shrugged and said: “What can we do? It’s war.”

  Guardian

Thank you George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleeza Rice, et al. The world is so much better off.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Meanwhile in Liberated Iraq

Fighting between Iraqi forces and ISIL fighters has cut water supplies across a large part of Mosul, affecting 40 percent of residents in the city where poorer families are already struggling to feed themselves.

Water was cut to 650,000 people when a pipeline was hit during fighting between ISIL and the Iraqi government forces trying to crush them in their northern Iraq stronghold.

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The battle for Mosul has already raged for six weeks.

  alJazeera

Make America Win Again!

Stop being losers!



Donald Trump, who repeatedly says he's going to sue everyone who insults or displeases him, of all people should know the efficacy of a threat as deterrent.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Meanwhile in Iraq

Iraqi government forces have launched a campaign to retake Mosul, the de-facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Iraq.

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Mosul is Iraq's second largest city and the last urban centre still under ISIL control in Iraq after a series of government offensives to reverse the group's seizure of territory in 2014.

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"We are proud to stand with you in this historic operation," Brett McGurk, US envoy to the coalition against ISIL, said on Twitter at the start of the Mosul offensive.

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[T]he launch of the operation marks only the start of a battle that is likely to be the most difficult in the war against ISIL.

  alJazeera

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It Was Just a Mistake

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 56 civilians were killed when their convoy of vehicles attempted to slip out of an area north of the city of Manbij in the predawn darkness, as U.S.-backed forces pushed forward in an increasingly bloody offensive in the area. In a brief phone interview, a representative from the Britain-based organization said that while coalition aircraft were believed to be responsible for the air raid, the group suspected it was a “100 percent mistake.”

Airwars, a nonprofit that tracks claims of civilian casualties resulting from the international air campaign against ISIS, said incoming reports indicated the death toll may prove to be well over 100 civilians — potentially making it the largest single loss of civilian life resulting from coalition airstrikes since the U.S.-led campaign to destroy ISIS began nearly two years ago. Tuesday’s reports were the latest in a string of recent incidents in which coalition aircraft have been implicated in the deaths of civilians in the Manbij area.

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While the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and others reported civilians killed as they fled ISIS, an account published by Syria Direct, a nonprofit media organization, reported that six missiles fired by coalition forces at 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning struck a school in the village of Tokhar, a short distance northeast of Manbij, killing “anywhere from 65 to 160 people.” Sources on the ground told the outlet the “school housed displaced people from neighboring villages.”

  The Intercept

It's hard to see why they hate us. Unless they're just jealous.

The Telegraph, which reported 85 civilians killed in Tuesday’s air raid as they fled Tokhar, suggested today’s operation was the first mission launched from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey since the facility was temporarily shut down after last week’s failed coup.

As long as that's back up and running, the tens of thousands of Erdoğan cleansees are hardly worth mentioning.

[Chris] Woods, of Airwars, said Pentagon data shows roughly 98 percent of the coalition airstrikes in the Manbij campaign are overseen by the U.S., and last week was the largest number of civilian casualties since the effort began in August 2014. His organization was in the midst of preparing a report on the marked rise in civilian casualties in the area when Tuesday’s reports began to come in.

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The developments in Manbij, he said, were particularly worrying as coalition forces prepare to mount similar campaigns to retake larger cities from ISIS control. “This is the first big assault with a U.S.-backed proxy,” he said. “This bodes very badly for Mosul,” Iraq’s second largest city, which remains under ISIS control.

“Major alarm bells are ringing for us right now,” Woods added. “There’s something very, very bad happening out there at the moment.”

Thus coining the understatement of the century.

Can they hate us any harder?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.