Nation/World

Pentagon inquiry blames ISIS for civilian deaths in Iraq bombing

WASHINGTON — A U.S. airstrike in March killed more than 100 Iraqi civilians by inadvertently setting off a large amount of explosives that Islamic State fighters had placed in a building in Mosul, according to a long-awaited military investigation made public on Thursday.

Critics have said the March 17 airstrike demonstrated that the United States has been too quick to use air power in a congested city filled with hundreds of thousands of civilians. But the Pentagon investigation put the primary blame on the Islamic State, asserting that it placed the explosives in the building and then had two snipers fire at Iraqi forces from the area.

The investigation concluded that 105 civilians were killed: 101 in the building that was bombed and four in an adjacent structure. Thirty-six civilians who were believed to have been in the area have not been accounted for. The toll is one of the highest in the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State, though the investigation asserts that jihadis' explosives were mainly at fault.

Neither the U.S.-led coalition nor Iraqi forces were aware that civilians and explosives were in the building, the investigation concluded.

According to the investigation, which was overseen by Air Force Brig. Gen. Matthew C. Isler, the episode began on that March morning when two Islamic State snipers in the city's Jidideh section began firing at troops from Iraq's Counterterrorism Service, which was fighting its way into west Mosul.

The Iraqis requested an airstrike, and the U.S.-led coalition responded by dropping a single GBU-38 munition, which is a 500-pound bomb, around 8:30 a.m.

The aim was to produce a blast that would destroy only the top floor of the building, which was described as a well-built concrete structure, and kill the snipers. Such a bomb contains slightly less than 200 pounds of explosives, which coalition officials said should not have taken down the building.

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But the blast set off the explosive material that Islamic State fighters has placed in the building, causing it to collapse. Analysis of the debris found residue of explosive materials that Islamic State fighters are known to use but that are not used in the GBU-38.

In addition, the investigation said that the main damage to the structure was elsewhere in the building from where the GBU-38 was dropped.

The investigation, however, did not assert that the jihadis herded civilians into the building.

The U.S.-led command has previously said that 396 civilians have been killed in the more than two-year campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, though some independent estimates run much higher.

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