Surging civilian casualties which have plagued American and coalition commanders in Iraq in recent days could multiply, as the U.S. and its allies head into the most grueling phase of the campaign to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State.
The fight for western Mosul’s Old City, home to the mosque where Islamic State leader Abu-Bakr al Baghdadi infamously declared the creation of a new caliphate, has been a bloody affair defined by some of the toughest urban combat seen by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces since the offensive began in October, U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel said Wednesday.
A simultaneous push into the Islamic State’s de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa could also mean rising civilian casualties as well.
“As we move into these urban environments, it is going to become more and more difficult to apply extraordinarily high standards for the things we we’re doing, although we will try,” Gen. Votel told a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday.
Western Mosul’s old city district is a “very dense urban area [which is ] much, much more complex and much more favors the defender than it does the attacker,” the general said.
Gen. Stephen Townsend, the top U.S. commander in charge of operations in Iraq and Syria, said Tuesday that Iraqi forces and their U.S. advisers battling ISIS in western Mosul are engaged in the toughest urban combat since World War II. “It is house by house, block by block,” he said.
Reports from frontline units claim Iraqi forces are seeing twice as many Iraqi civilians attempting to flee western Mosul, compared to the flood of refugees who attempted to escape the city’s east side at the beginning of the operation, according to Gen. Townsend.
Iraqi forces have suffered nearly 1,900 troops killed or wounded just over 30 says into the operation to retake western Mosul, Gen. Votel said. Just under 3,500 Iraqi troops were injured or killed during the three-month campaign to clear the eastern half, he said.
Neither Washington nor Baghdad has provided official numbers for civilians killed during the Mosul operation, but thousands of Iraqis remain caught in the crossfire within the city that was home to over 2.5 million before falling to Islamic State in 2014.
The United Nations human rights office has estimated that least 300 people have been killed since mid-February — including 140 from a single March 17 airstrike in western Mosul.
Gen. Townsend acknowledged Tuesday there was “a fair chance” a U.S. airstrike played a role in the carnage resulting from the March 17 strike.
“We probably had a role in those casualties,” the general said, adding that “the enemy had a hand in this.” He suggested Islamic State’s use of civilians as human shields and questioning why so many civilians would voluntarily gather in a single building under assault by American airpower.
The rising death toll among noncombatants even attracted the attention of Pope France at the Vatican, who said limiting civilian casualties was “an imperative and urgent obligation” during a papal address in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday.
Gen. Votel insisted Wednesday that U.S. and Iraqi officials are “doing everything humanly possible to prevent” civilian casualties as fighting in Iraq and Syria intensifies.
“These are absolutely tragic and heartbreaking situations,” Gen. Votel told committee members, adding each allegation of civilian casualties tied to U.S. operations is taken seriously.
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