Nation/World

A wave of civilian deaths hangs over deepening U.S. role in Isis fight

MOSUL, Iraq — Scores of Iraqi civilians, some of them still alive and calling out for help, were buried for days under the rubble of their homes in west Mosul after U.S.-led airstrikes flattened almost an entire city block.

At the site on Sunday, more than a week after the bombing runs, reporters for The New York Times saw weary survivors trying to find bodies in the wreckage. Iraqi officials said the final death toll could reach 200 killed, or even more. That would make it one of the worst instances of civilian casualties from an attack by U.S.-led forces during the long American military presence in Iraq, starting with the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

The pace of fighting against the Islamic State here has grown more urgent, with Iraqi officers saying the U.S.-led coalition has been quicker to strike at urban targets from the air with less time to weigh the risks for civilians. They say the change is a reflection of a renewed push by the U.S. military under the Trump administration to speed up the battle for Mosul.

That push is coming at the moment that the battle for Mosul is nearing its most dangerous phase for civilians, with the fight reaching into the twisting alleys and densely populated areas of the old city. That is where hundreds of thousands of civilians are pinned down in tight quarters with Islamic State fighters who do not care if they live or die.

At the same time, more U.S. Special Operations troops, some dressed in black uniforms and driving black vehicles — the colors of their Iraqi counterparts — are closer to the front lines. That way, in theory, the targeting of Islamic State fighters should become more precise for the coalition.

The Iraqi officers, by and large, welcome the change, saying that under the Obama administration coalition officers were too risk averse. Iraqis also say fighting for the dense, urban spaces of western Mosul requires more air power, even if that means more civilians will die.

When those decisions turn tragic, it looks like this: a panorama of destruction in the neighborhood of Mosul Jidideh so vast one resident compared the destruction to that of Hiroshima, Japan, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in World War II. There was a charred arm, wrapped in a piece of red fabric, poking from the rubble; rescue workers in red jump suits and face masks, to avoid the stench, some with rifles slung over their shoulders, searching the wreckage for bodies.

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One of the survivors, Omar Adnan, stood near his destroyed home on Sunday and held up a white sheet of paper with 27 names of his extended family members, either dead or missing, written in blue ink.

Nearby were two men, and one of them, Ashraf Mohammed, said, "I lost all of my family except this guy, my brother."

The civilian deaths have not been limited to the battle for Mosul, which is about 220 miles north of Baghdad. Across large swathes of Syria and Iraq, more U.S. ground troops, and more U.S. airstrikes, are being committed to the fight. In Syria, the battle has intensified in large part around Raqqa, the Islamic State's declared capital. The campaigns in both countries intend to deprive the Islamic State of its biggest cities, while keeping pressure on the group across its holdings.

Allegations of civilian casualties in both countries from U.S.-led airstrikes have increased so much in recent months that, for the first time, the number of coalition strikes affecting civilians have surpassed those carried out by Russia in Syria, according to Airwars, a monitoring organization based in London that tracks international airstrikes and their effect on civilians.

The group said the increase in reported civilian deaths began under President Barack Obama and accelerated once President Donald Trump took office in January.

Together, the intensified U.S. involvement in the fight against the Islamic State has raised questions about whether the Trump administration has relaxed procedures that are meant to keep civilian casualties at a minimum.

The U.S.-led coalition, which has confirmed it carried out a strike in Mosul Jidideh on March 17 and is investigating whether it is to blame for the deaths there, has insisted that there have been no changes to its rules of engagement. Commanders say they are doing everything they can to protect civilian lives while pushing the fight in Mosul.

"The death of innocent civilians in Mosul is a terrible tragedy," Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of the U.S. Central Command, said in a statement issued Sunday. "We are investigating the incident to determine exactly what happened and will continue to take extraordinary measures to avoid harming civilians."

The east side of Mosul, a city of 1.8 million that is Iraq's second-largest, was liberated in January, with much of it remaining intact and with everyday life resuming. On the west, the fight has become more brutal, with sections that look like moonscapes.

Maj. Gen. Maan al-Saadi, an Iraqi special operations forces commander who said his men called in the U.S. airstrikes that caused the civilian deaths, spoke about the victims: "We feel sad for them."

But he called the incident an unfortunate outcome in a nasty war. He said Iraqi forces had lost thousands of men fighting the Islamic State, and that to lose so many civilians in a single incident, "in return for liberating the entire city of Mosul, I think it is a normal thing."

"This is a war and mistakes can happen and there can be losses," he said. "But we are fighting the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world, with huge, unprecedented support from the international coalition."

Gen. Ali Jamil, an intelligence officer with the Iraqi special forces, said he had been fighting the Islamic State for more than two years, with the support of U.S. air power.

"I have not seen such a quick response with high coordination from the coalition as I am seeing now," he said. Before when Iraqis requested airstrikes, he said, "there used to be a delay, or no response sometimes, on the excuse of checking the location or looking for civilians."

On Sunday, a bulldozer pushed debris so rescuers could reach bodies. When one body was found, a man nearby identified it as that of his nephew and another man wrote his name down in a leather-bound notebook. The body was then zipped up in a blue plastic bag and placed inside a garage alongside others. Many of the dead had already been buried in the gardens of homes that were only damaged.

Residents who were in the neighborhood during the fighting suggested there was every reason to believe the area was filled with civilians at the time of the airstrikes — especially because the Iraqi government and its U.S. allies dropped leaflets asking civilians to remain in their homes rather than risk fleeing into the middle of the battle.

But the battle has come to them now.

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As the fight for this west Mosul neighborhood raged 10 days ago, Islamic State fighters were dashing between homes across courtyards, passing through holes punched in concrete walls that allowed them to move their positions without showing themselves on the streets. Advancing Iraqi soldiers, who called in the airstrikes, were in earshot of civilians.

"They were very close," said Mubishar Thanoon, a resident in his late 30s, standing on Sunday at the bedside of his brother, who was wounded in the attack, at a hospital in Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region. "I was hearing their voices. They knew exactly that we were there."

Another man, Ziad Suleyman, 27, said he could see an Iraqi special forces sniper on a nearby building, who was wearing a baseball cap and ear muffs and communicated with him using hand signals. "He was waving to me," said Suleyman, also at the Irbil hospital, where he was visiting a wounded relative. "I was seeing him, he was seeing us."

Residents and Iraqi officers said that Islamic State fighters, some speaking Russian, according to residents, had taken sniper positions on the rooftops of homes, pinning down some advancing Iraqi forces. Hundreds of residents, trying to escape indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire and fearful of airstrikes, took refuge in basements, which are unusual in many Iraqi houses but are common in the older homes of Mosul.

It was there that they died, from airstrikes targeting the snipers that caused entire buildings to collapse, survivors recounted.

"Not all of the houses had Daesh on the roof," said Ali Adbulghani, a resident of the neighborhood, referring to another name for Islamic State fighters. "Why, just because of one Daesh, kill everyone?"

U.S. military officials have said that their investigation so far has found that one building collapsed days after the strikes in the neighborhood, raising the possibility that the Islamic State blew up the building after the bombing runs, killing many civilians.

In interviews, survivors and local residents dismissed that, saying airstrikes brought the buildings down. Survivors and Iraqi officers say that fighting raged in the neighborhood for days after the strikes, delaying the arrival of rescuers.

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A few among the lucky are now lying, injured but alive, in hospital beds in Irbil, about 50 miles east of Mosul.

Thannon's brother, Ali, was one of them. He survived days under the wreckage, emerging with a broken arm and many cuts and bruises. He recalled lying under the rubble never thinking he would die there, and speaking to another man nearby, who died there.

"It was a conversation between two dying men," he said.

He said he had hid in a basement not because Islamic State fighters forced him to, but because of the "terror and fear" of artillery and airstrikes.

"For me and my family, we thought this was the safest place," he said.

When asked what happened to his family, Ali's brother quickly changed the subject.

A few moments later, in the hallway outside the room, Thannon confided that he had not yet told his brother, who he said was delirious from his ordeal and from painkillers, that his family — his two wives, four daughters, two sons and two grandchildren — had all been killed.

 
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