The U.S. military acknowledged for the first time Saturday that it launched an airstrike against the Islamic State in the densely packed Iraqi city of Mosul, where residents say more than 100 people were killed in a single event.
If confirmed, the March 17 incident would mark the greatest loss of civilian life since the U.S. began strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
An “initial review” showed that the coalition struck Islamic State fighters and equipment in west Mosul at the request of Iraq forces and “at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties,” the task force leading the coalition said in a statement.
Previously, the U.S.-led coalition had said officials were unsure whether there were any air attacks targeting the specific area of the neighborhood Mosul al-Jadida at the time when residents claim a strike killed 137 civilians.
Iraqi officials working on the rescue said they had pulled 83 bodies — including many women and children — from a destroyedbuilding by sundown Saturday. They have yet to complete site excavations.
The U.S. military is conducting an initial investigation into the incident.
Allegations of large-scale civilian carnage deepen questions about the conduct of counterterrorism operations under President Donald Trump, who promised to act more aggressively to stamp out militant groups but whose short presidency has been marked by a spate of incidents in which civilians may have died.
In addition to the March 17 strike in Mosul, the U.S. military is now investigating a separate attack this month alleged to have killed scores of civilians at a mosque in Syria. Military leaders have also acknowledged the death of at least some civilians in a Navy SEAL raid in Yemen in January.
Activists including Airwars, a U.K.-based monitoring group, have raised the alarm at what they say is a surge in U.S.-linked deaths in Iraq and Syria, asserting that 1,000 civilians have died this month alone in strikes by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria.
While the Obama administration acknowledged that its military operations resulted in a number of civilian casualty incidents in Iraq and Syria, the tightly spaced series of recent allegations is striking.
It remains unclear what, if any, common factors may be behind the reported uptick in civilian bloodshed.
Operations against Islamic State strongholds have reached a new, more intense phase in Mosul, where local forces are battling militants in heavily populated neighborhoods, and in Syria, where the U.S. is seeking to deal a decisive blow to several militant groups.
In his first days in office, President Trump, who criticized his predecessor as weak against militant groups, asked the Pentagon to consider whether restrictions on U.S. military operations against the group, designed in part to protect civilian life, should be loosened.
Officials maintain that, so far at least, no changes to existing rules for military operations have taken place.
Military commanders also said they take extensive measures to protect civilian life. In its statement, the U.S.-led coalition said its goal was “zero civilian casualties.”
“But the coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of ISIS’s inhuman tactics terrorizing civilians, using human shields, and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighborhoods,” the statement read.
Like other strikes conducted in support of Iraqi ground operations, the March 17 attack was approved at a U.S. command center either in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East, defense officials said. Typically, a one-star general or a team working under him or her reviews and approves such strikes. That makes them different from strikes targeting a specific individual, which are planned much further in advance and could require approval from the White House.
The increase in civilian casualty claims threatens to tarnish the gains of Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition.
