Iraqi government forces paused in their push to recapture western Mosul from ISIS militants on Saturday because of the high rate of civilian casualties, a security forces spokesman said.
The halt was called as the United Nations expressed its profound concern over reports of an incident during the battle on March 17 that killed or wounded dozens of people in the ISIS-held al-Jadidah district of Mosul, apparently involving air strikes by Iraqi or U.S.-led coalition forces.
“We are stunned by this terrible loss of life,” Lise Grande, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement.
Civil defence officials and residents have said many people lay buried in collapsed buildings after airstrikes against ISIS insurgents triggered a big explosion.
Iraqi civilians flee the city of Mosul as Iraqi forces advance in their fighting against ISIS jihadists on Thursday. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)
The exact cause of the collapses was not clear but a local politician and two residents said the airstrikes may have detonated an ISIS truck filled with explosives, destroying buildings in the heavily populated area.
Reports on the numbers of civilian casualties have varied, but Civil Defence chief Brigadier Mohammed Al-Jawari told reporters on Thursday that rescue teams had recovered 40 bodies from collapsed buildings.
The coalition is investigating reports of an airstrike in that neighbourhood that allegedly killed anywhere from 100 to 200 civilians.
Residents escaping besieged western Mosul have told of Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition airstrikes demolishing buildings and killing civilians in several cases.
The insurgents have also used civilians as human shields and opened fire on them as they try to escape ISIS-held neighbourhoods, fleeing residents said.
“The recent high death toll among civilians inside the Old City forced us to halt operations to review our plans,” a Federal Police spokesman said on Saturday. “It’s a time for weighing new offensive plans and tactics. No combat operations are to go on.”
The U.S.-backed offensive to drive the group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured the entire eastern side of Mosul and about half of the west.
But advances have stuttered in the last two weeks as fighting enters the narrow alleys of the Old City, home to the al-Nuri mosque where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
The Yabasat neighbourhood of western Mosul has largely been destroyed by the fighting. About 600,000 people remain in the areas of west Mosul held by ISIS militants, including 400,000 civilians in the Old City who are living under siege-like conditions, the UN said. (Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images)
“We need to make sure that taking out Daesh (ISIS) from the Old City will not cost unwanted high casualties among civilians. We need surgical accurate operations to target terrorists without causing collateral damage among residents,” the Federal Police spokesman said.
An army statement published in the al-Sabah state newspaper said that future operations would be carried out by ground troops highly trained for urban combat.
“Our heroic forces are committed to the rules of engagement which ensure protection of civilians,” the statement said.
A U.S. deputy commanding general for the coalition told Reuters on Friday that the solution could lie in a change of tactics. The Iraqi military is assessing opening up another front and isolating the Old City, where the militants have put up fierce resistance, U.S. Army Brigadier General John Richardson said.
600K civilians still in western Mosul
Fleeing residents have described grim living conditions inside the city, saying there was no running water or electricity and no food coming in. Aid agencies say as many as 600,000 civilians remain in the western half of Mosul.
But families are streaming out of the northern city, Iraq’s second largest, in their thousands each day, headed for cold, crowded camps or to stay with relatives. Hunger and fighting are making life unbearable inside.
The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights said that since the campaign on western Mosul began on Feb. 19, unconfirmed reports said nearly 700 civilians had been killed by government and coalition airstrikes or Islamic State actions.
The militants have used car bombs, snipers and mortar fire to counter the offensive. They have also stationed themselves in homes belonging to Mosul residents to fire at Iraqi troops, often drawing air or artillery strikes that have killed civilians.
The United Nations’ Grande said civilians were at extreme risk as the fighting in Mosul intensified and all sides must to do their utmost to avoid such casualties.
“International humanitarian law is clear. Parties to the conflict — all parties — are obliged to do everything possible to protect civilians. This means that combatants cannot use people as human shields and cannot imperil lives through indiscriminate use of fire-power,” she said.