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US
Air Strikes Kill Hundreds of Civilians in Mosul
By
Nicolas J. S. Davies
May
05, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- USA
Today revealed
on April 19th that U.S. air forces have been operating
under looser rules of engagement in Iraq and Syria since last
fall. The war commander, Lt Gen McFarland, now orders air
strikes that are expected to kill up to 10 civilians without
prior approval from U.S. Central Command, and U.S. officials
acknowledge that air strikes are killing more civilians under
the new rules.
U.S.
officials previously claimed that air strikes in Iraq and Syria
had killed as few as 26 civilians. A senior Pentagon
official who is briefed daily on the air war told USA
Today that
was unrealistic, since air strikes that have destroyed
6,000 buildings with over
40,000 bombs and missiles have inevitably killed much higher
numbers of civilians.
As
the U.S. escalates its air strikes on Mosul, the
largest city occupied by Islamic State, reports of hundreds of
civilians killed by air strikes reveal some of the human costs of the
U.S. air war and the new rules of engagement.
Award-winning
Iraqi environmental scientist and Mosul native Souad
Al-Azzawi (Ph.D. Colorado School of Mines) has compiled
a partial list of air strikes that have killed civilians and
destroyed civilian infrastructure from reports by Mosul
Eye, Nineveh
Reporters Network, Al
Maalomah News Network, other Iraqi media and contacts in
Mosul:
– Many government buildings have been destroyed. As U.S. officials told USA Today, attacks are often conducted at night to minimize civilian casualties, but they have killed security guards and civilians in neighboring buildings.
– Telephone exchanges have been systematically bombed and destroyed.
– Two large dairies were bombed, killing about 100 civilians and wounding 200 more.
– Multiple daytime air strikes on Mosul University on March 19th and 20th killed 92 civilians and wounded 135, mostly faculty, staff, families and students. Targets included the main administration building, classroom buildings, a women’s dormitory and a faculty apartment building.
– 50 civilians were killed and 100 wounded by air strikes on 2 apartment buildings, Al Hadbaa and Al Khadraa.
– A mother and 4 children were killed in an air strike on a house in the Hay al Dhubat district of East Mosul on April 20th, next door to a house used by Islamic State that was undamaged.
– 22 civilians were killed in air strikes on houses in front of Mosul Medical College.
– 20 civilians were killed and 70 wounded by air strikes on the Sunni Waqif building and nearby houses and shops.
– U.S. air strikes on April 24th damaged the Rashidiya water treatment plant in West Mosul and the Yarmouk power station in East Mosul.
– The Central Bank of Mosul in Ghazi Street and several branches of Rafidain and Rasheed banks were bombed, with heavy civilian casualties, despite all cash reportedly being removed after the first bank was struck.
– Three workers were killed and 12 wounded in an air strike on the former Pepsi bottling plant.
– An air strike on a fuel depot in an industrial area ignited an inferno with 150 casualties on April 18th.
– Bombs have damaged a food warehouse, power stations and sub-stations in West Mosul, and flour mills, a pharmaceutical factory, auto repair shops and other workshops across Mosul.
– The Al Hurairah Bridge was destroyed by air strikes.
At
the very least, U.S. air strikes have killed hundreds of civilians in
Mosul and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure that people
depend on for their lives in already dire conditions. And yet
by all accounts, this is only the beginning of the U.S.-Iraqi
campaign to retake Mosul. One and one-half million civilians are
trapped in the city, 30 times the UN’s estimate of the number of
civilians in Fallujah before the November 2004 assault
that killed
4,000 to 6,000 people, mostly civilians.
Meanwhile ISIL prevents civilians from evacuating the city, believing
that their presence protects its forces from even heavier
bombardment.
International
humanitarian law strictly prohibits military attacks on civilians,
civilian areas and civilian infrastructure. The presence of
several thousand ISIL militants in a city of 1.5 million people does
not justify indiscriminate bombing or attacks on civilian
targets. As the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq
warned U.S. officials in aHuman
Rights Report in 2007, “The presence of individual
combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the
civilian nature of an area.” UNICEF protestedthe
bombing of a water treatment plant in Syria last
December as “a particularly alarming example” of how “the rules
of war, including those meant to protect vital civilian
infrastructure, continue to be broken on a daily basis.”
The fundamental
contradiction of the militarized “war on terror” has always been
that U.S. aggression and other war crimes only reinforce the
narratives of jihadis who see themselves as a bulwark against foreign
aggression and neocolonialism in the Muslim world.
Meanwhile U.S. wars and covert operations against secular
enemies like Hussein, Gaddafi and Assad create new zones of
chaos where jihadis can thrive.
President
Obama has acknowledged publicly that there is therefore “no
military solution” to jihadism. But successive U.S.
administrations have proven unable to resist the lure of military
escalation at each new stage of this crisis, unleashing wars that
have killed
about two million people, plunged a dozen countries into chaos
and exploded Wahhabi jihadism from its original safe havens in Saudi
Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan to countries across the
world.
If
the U.S. and its Iraqi allies follow through with their
threatened assault on Mosul, the resulting massacre will join
Fallujah, Guantanamo and U.S. drone wars as a powerful catalyst
for the next mutation of Wahhabi jihadism, which is likely
to be more globalized and unified.
But
although Al Qaeda and Islamic State have proven adept at manipulating
U.S. leaders into ever-escalating cycles of violence,
the jihadis cannot directly order American pilots to bomb
civilians. Only our leaders can do that, making
them morally and legally responsible for these crimes,
just as Islamic State’s leaders are responsible for
theirs.
Nicolas
J.S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American
Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapters on
“Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on
Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.
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Zie ook: 'Syrische bombardementen op twee ziekenhuizen', althans volgens de westerse media en politici......'
en: 'Mosul, het verschil in berichtgeving vergeleken met de bevrijding van Oost-Aleppo...........'
en: 'Mosul >> VS vermoordde daar met bombardementen meer dan 40.000 burgers, Irak deed het na de 'bevrijding' dunnetjes over met 10.000 moorden.......'
en: 'Kinderen in Irak vermoord middels VS terreur.......'
en: 'Mosul 'zal met precisie ontdaan worden van de terroristen, inclusief een minimum aan burgerslachtoffers.......''
en: 'After Mosul’s “Liberation,” Horror of US Siege Continues to Unfold ' (met mogelijkheid tot vertaling)
en: 'Hennis-Plasschaert hoopte nog zo, dat IS de bevolking van Mosul niet als schild zou gebruiken........'
