A high-ranking US commander has admitted that there was a “fair chance” that a coalition airstrike in western Mosul killed a large number of Iraqi civiliansl, as the UN and Amnesty International called for greater efforts to protect civilians.
“We probably had a role in those casualties,” said Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend while talking to reporters in a phone briefing from Baghdad on Tuesday.
He noted that the reason for the high number of casualties was allegedly ISIL’s repulsive practice of using civilians as human shields.
“The enemy had a hand in this,” he claimed, alleging that “It sure looks like” the civilians has been forced to gather in the building by the terrorists. “What I don’t know is why they [the civilians] gathered there by the enemy?”
On March 17, Iraq’s Kurdish-language Rudaw television network reported that 237 people had been killed in US-led coalition airstrikes on an ISIL-held neighborhood in western Mosul.
Despite admitting to the US’s involvement in the incident, Townsend noted that the munitions used by US-led coalition forces in densely-populated urban areas were not designed to cause such a level of destruction.
The US had previously admitted to having launched airstrikes in Mosul on the day of the deadly tragedy.
Meanwhile, the UN has called on the US-led coalition in Iraq to take further measures towards protecting civilians. UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said Tuesday that more than 300 civilians have been killed in west Mosul since February 17.
Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera said field research in east Mosul showed “an alarming pattern of US-led coalition air strikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside”. “The high civilian toll suggests that coalition forces… have failed to take adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” she said.
Source: Agencies
