The U.N. human rights chief is calling on Iraq’s military and a U.S.-led coalition to review their tactics in the battle against the Islamic State group in Mosul, warning that they should not fall into what he called the militants’ “trap” of endangering civilians.
“The conduct of airstrikes on ISIL locations in such an environment, particularly given the clear indications that ISIL is using large numbers of civilians as human shields at such locations, may potentially have a lethal and disproportionate impact on civilians,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in a statement Tuesday, using an acronym for Islamic State.
The U.N. says at least 307 people were killed and 273 others wounded between February 17 and March 22 in western Mosul. It attributed the casualties to all sides involved in the fight for western Mosul — Iraqi and coalition airstrikes, as well as Islamic State shelling and improvised explosive devices.
“ISIL’s strategy of using children, men and women to shield themselves from attack is cowardly and disgraceful,” Zeid said. “It breaches the most basic standards of human dignity and morality.”
He welcomed pledges from the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi military to investigate some of the most serious incidents that involved civilian casualties.
The deadliest single incident happened March 17 in western Mosul’s Old City
The U.S. military is looking at more than 700 separate video feeds covering 10 days of airstrikes in Mosul to determine whether reports that coalition strikes killed as many as 100 civilians in Mosul are credible, a spokesman said on Monday.
“We know that we were dropping bombs in the immediate vicinity,” Thomas said, adding that some bombs were dropped just tens of meters away from areas where civilian casualties were reported.
The Pentagon has called the death of civilians in Mosul a terrible tragedy.
“There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Monday. “We go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people. The same cannot be said for our adversaries.”
The Pentagon has said an initial review showed coalition warplanes conducted strikes on March 17 “at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties” in western Mosul’s Old City.
“We know that we were dropping bombs in the immediate vicinity,” Thomas said, adding that some bombs were dropped just tens of meters away from areas where civilian casualties were reported.
Thomas said that the U.S. military is fully capable, however, of striking one building while leaving its surrounding unscathed.
He noted that those assessing the situation also hope the video could provide clarity on reports of secondary explosions, which some news outlets have blamed on Islamic State improvised explosive devices.
Nate Rabkin, managing editor of the website Inside Iraqi Politics, said the building was the house of a wealthy person who had invited refugees to stay there.
“Fighters from ISIS set up on the roof of this building, and so when the building was targeted with an airstrike, it ended up killing a lot of the people sheltering inside,” Rabkin told VOA.
He said what exactly happened there is not yet certain, but that even if a coalition airstrike is to blame, the impact on public opinion could be limited.
“There are a lot of people in Iraq who have a lot of bad memories of coalition airstrikes, U.S. airstrikes in the past. I’m not sure that this particular incident makes a big change to how the debate unfolds in Iraqi media and among the Iraqi public,” Rabkin said.
WATCH: Iraq continues Mosul offensive
The Iraqi military has cast doubt on U.S. blame for the March 17 casualties, citing evidence it says shows Islamic State fighters placed explosives at the site.
“All of [the building’s] walls were rigged with bombs, and there is no hole or signs that it was an airstrike target,” the Iraqi military’s Joint Command said.
A difficult fight
Iraqi forces, with the coalition air support, are working to regain control of western Mosul from Islamic State fighters who seized the city in mid-2014.
“While Iraq’s security forces are making measurable progress, the fight in Mosul is a difficult one, and particularly because the enemy operates amongst the civilian population,” Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement released Sunday.
More than a half-million civilians are still believed to remain in Islamic State-held areas of Mosul, with many of them used by Islamic State extremists as human shields as Iraqi forces advance.
Civilians, humanitarian aid groups and monitoring officials have warned about the possibility of increased civilian casualties because of an increasing demand for airstrikes and artillery.
Victor Beattie contributed to this report.
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