The Iraqi military says 61 bodies have been pulled from the rubble of a home in Mosul after allegations surfaced that around 200 civilians had been killed in airstrikes in the city.
But the military said that an initial examination of the home shows no indication of an airstrike, and that it was more likely that ISIS militants blew up the building.
The details are among the first to emerge since the defense departments from both Iraq and the United States launched formal investigations Saturday into airstrikes that hit western Mosul between March 17 and 23.
US and Iraqi forces have been making an all-out push to regain Mosul from ISIS since October. Iraq’s second-largest city has been under the terrorist group’s control since 2014 — and is its last major stronghold in Iraq.
The US-led coalition confirmed Saturday that it had carried out airstrikes on March 17 “at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties.”
Civil defense groups who first reported the civilian deaths on social media say the March 17 strike was one of the deadliest. It is that strike that is the focus of the US probe.
The investigations are aimed at clearing up the confusion swirling over the number of civilian casualties and what caused their deaths. Bashar al Kiki, chairman of the Nineveh Provincial Council, told CNN on Saturday that up to 200 people were killed in several “indiscriminate airstrikes” over a number of days that he blamed on Iraqi and coalition air forces.
Of the 61 bodies recovered so far, it is unclear how many belong to civilians and how many might be ISIS fighters.
Vehicle bomb or airstrike?
The Iraqi military said in a statement Sunday that the home it examined had been reduced to rubble, but there was no sign of it being hit from the air. The team found a vehicle bomb and detonator in the debris and, along with witness accounts, it believed that ISIS fighters had blown up the home.
The military said 25 women and children were also rescued from the home alive.
The military also claimed that ISIS had forced families into the basements of homes in the area, using them as human shields.
In several parts of western Mosul, civilians say they are being caught up in coalition airstrikes, as well as crossfire between the Iraqi forces and ISIS fighters, Reuters reports.
Los Angeles Times reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske, who visited the area in question with a civil defense group on Friday, told CNN that she saw at least 50 dead bodies, as well as body parts, sticking out of the rubble.
“Hands, feet — there were some remains that were wrapped in blankets, most of them that they had retrieved they put in body bags. And (the civil defense group) unzipped some of those because they wanted to show us that some of the victims were women, including at least one pregnant woman and children. Some babies as well,” she said.
The area was very crowded as Iraqis there said ISIS militants had forced them into the area, Hennessy-Fiske said.
She said residents she spoke to said ISIS had brought a truck with explosives to the area days before the strike and that their fighters were shooting at aircraft above them when an “explosion happened.”
“Some people I talked to said the building started falling down on them. Some saw that truck that was parked on the street explode — it wasn’t clear why that was — if it was triggered by the strike or not. And some managed to escape unharmed.”
The US Central Command said in a statement Saturday that it has opened a formal probe “to determine the facts surrounding this strike and the validity of the allegation of civilian casualties.”
“The coalition respects human life, which is why we are assisting our Iraqi partner forces in their effort to liberate their lands from ISIS brutality,” the statement said.
“Our goal has always been for 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 US military is also investigating allegations of civilian casualties during two recent airstrikes in Syria.
New tactics in western Mosul
Determined to keep civilians out of harm’s way, Iraqi security forces said Saturday that new tactics would be needed in the battle to recapture western Mosul from ISIS.
Many of the roads in Mosul’s old city are narrow, making targeted airstrikes challenging.
“We have reached the old city. It’s more complicated warfare,” according to Lt. Col. Abdul Amir Muhammadawi, spokesman for the rapid response teams.
“The old city has old buildings and small alleyways, and to protect the civilians, we need new tactics.”
Local and UN officials have said hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped in areas under ISIS control in western Mosul.
The United Nations also said it is “profoundly concerned” over reports “of a high number of civilian casualties” in the city’s al Jadidah section.
There are about 600,000 civilians feared trapped in western Mosul, according to the International Organization of Migration.
This month, Iraqi forces seized Mosul’s main government building and central bank from ISIS militants and are now closing in on the historic Al Nuri mosque where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi first declared his envisioned Islamic caliphate.