generalspeaking

Liberating Mosul

"[The] coalition's goal is always for zero human casualties. We apply rigorous standards to our targeting process."
"Not since World War II has there been an urban assault on a city like Mosul. The only way to liberate the city was to go house by house, and street by street."
"[Iraqi soldiers rescued civilians hoping that security forces reached them] quickly enough before they starved to death or were killed by ISIS while trying to flee."
U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesperson, U.S.-led coalition, Syria, Iraq

Emanuele Satolli    It was my fourth day embedded with Iraqi Army troops in the al-Zanjili district of western Mosul. In the morning, the soldiers tried to advance without success as Islamic State militants kept heavily resisting. At one point, maybe encouraged by the presence of the soldiers, a few civilians decided to leave their houses and began walking on a road amid the rubble. Militants opened fire but the soldiers shot back to protect the civilians. There, I saw this woman carrying an exhausted child. She turned back toward where she came from, where the bullets were coming from, and appeared frightened. When I saw the picture again, I felt she was giving a last look at her house, her familiar road, before becoming another of the displaced.

The unfortunate residents of Mosul, trapped in the Old City while ISIL fighters used them as handy shields in the thought that Iraqi forces would withhold the level of their assault knowing the plight of the civilian population, can be forgiven for believing that, given their miserable experience, not as much that could have been done to shelter them from ongoing bombing and the inevitable results was actually contemplated on their behalf, much less prosecuted.

But then, the actions of ISIL in identifying the local population a being of great good use in protecting themselves from the onslaught by appealing to the humanitarian nature of those attempting to dislodge the terrorists and retake the city, represents a tried-and-true tactic in the Middle East, obviously popular with Arab fighters. Take advantage of the close presence of innocent civilians; from within their midst lob off munitions, knowing that those targeted will hesitate to respond in the knowledge that unarmed civilians of all ages will be harmed.

This is precisely the most favourite tactic practised by Hamas in Gaza. When Hamas provocations became too bold and too frequent, and the Israel Defence Forces responded by invading Gaza to stop the constant bombardment of rockets into Israel and the abduction of IDF soldiers, it was from within the crowded civilian population of Gaza City and elsewhere that Hamas shot off their munitions. UN-operated schools, hospitals, apartment blocks, all these locations were used as ammunition depots and weapons-launching areas.

Moreover, Hamas urged Gaza's Palestinians to defy the Israeli strikes, to mount protests on the roofs of buildings, to invite the strikes of the IDF in defiance and to declare themselves willing to die. In response the IDF showered the population with printed warnings, urging them to vacate premises slated to be targeted, and even sent initial lesser bombs as warning before launching the heavier more destructive arms. Warnings of attacks were sent via cellphones to alert civilians to vacate target areas.

But every civilian who died represented another arrow in the quiver of Hamas's righteous indignation at the death of civilians by the IDF, and it was that public relations message that went viral internationally, inspiring protests worldwide against the inhumane attacks by Israeli forces against vulnerable Palestinian populations in Gaza. Now, thousands of civilian Iraqis have met their death as a result of U.S.-supported Iraqi troops fighting ISIL to retake Mosul.

Frightened families huddling in their cellars whom air strikes in support of the Iraqi ground forces killed outright. Workers are now going house to house to recover bodies, digging in rubble, to take away the corpses of entire families, victimized by ISIL, who kept them under guard in the houses the terrorists used to launch their strikes from. But Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi is celebrating victory, despite the "blood and sacrifices", so all is not lost.

Cengiz Yar   Out of the desert they walked, trudging through the sand and dust kicked up by Iraqi special forces Humvees. Some carried small bags of clothing. Others held sticks with white cloth tied to the end. Mohamed carried the tiny body of his two-month-old daughter wrapped in bloodied linen.

And nor is there an international outcry in condemnation of the direct bombing of houses and other buildings full of cowering, defenceless civilians -- leaving a death toll that cannot by any measure be defended. When Islamic State snipers installed themselves on rooftops to target Iraqi ground forces the result was that artillery fire or airstrikes fell onto those buildings, irrespective of the fact that it was known that their interiors were full of civilians. Survivors attested to this fact.

Civil defence workers have hundreds of prospective locations where bodies are known to be rotting, awaiting recovery and burial. But survivors and relatives of those killed have frequently gone out before the workers to themselves dig frantically in the rubble to attempt to recover the bodies of those they loved. Two refrigerated tractor trailers parked on a lawn close to the main Mosul morgue are full. "Based on our figures, there are not enough refrigerators [to hold recovered corpses] in all of Iraq", commented an Iraqi official.

"They [the Iraqi forces] had no mercy. A sniper would fall with a bullet or a rocket. But to kill one sniper, seven houses were destroyed", said Mohammed Ali Mahmoud, at one of the Mosul morgues, there looking for seventeen members of his extended family who were hit by an airstrike in the Old City.

Felipe Dana—AP   The two boys were cousins who had escaped after their house had been hit. They kept screaming, almost hysterically, that their parents were still under the rubble. Crying inconsolably, they were begging the soldiers and the medics to go and retrieve their parents but it was too dangerous to go there. I stayed with them for a while, taking pictures, even as more injured civilians kept arriving. Soon after I had to leave but I still wonder what happened to them and their families.

Labels: Bombing, Civilians, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Violence

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 29, 2017