US-led coalition not protecting Mosul civilians: Amnesty

Baghdad - Iraqi forces began the assault on Daesh-held Mosul in October.

A recent spike in civilian casualties in Mosul suggests the US-led coalition is not taking adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths as it battles the Daesh militants alongside Iraqi ground forces, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
The human rights group's report follows acknowledgement from the coalition that the US military was behind a March 17 strike in a western Mosul neighbourhood that residents have said killed more than a hundred civilians.
Amnesty's report also cites a second strike on Saturday that it said killed "up to 150 people." The US-led coalition said in a statement that it was investigating multiple strikes in western Mosul that allegedly resulted in civilian deaths.
Evidence gathered on the ground in Mosul "points to an alarming pattern of US-led coalition airstrikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside," the report stated.
It said any failure to take precautions to prevent civilian casualties would be "in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law."
In Baghdad, visiting US army chief of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, said on Monday that what caused the explosion was still unkown and added that "some degree of certainty will be known in the coming days following the investigation."
"It is very possible that Daesh blew up that building to blame it on the collation in order to cause a delay in the offensive into Mosul and cause a delay in the use of collation airstrikes, that is very possible," Milley told reporters after meetings at the Iraqi Defence Ministry.
"And it is possible the collation airstrike did it," he added.
Iraqi forces began the assault on Daesh-held Mosul in October, after months of preparation and buildup. In January, Iraq declared the eastern half of Mosul - the Tigris River divides the city into an eastern and western sector - "fully liberated." Iraqi government forces are now battling to retake the city's western half.
Civilians, humanitarian groups and monitoring officials have repeatedly warned of the possibility of increased civilian casualties in western Mosul due to the higher density of the population there and the increased reliance on airstrikes and artillery. Faced with their toughest fight against Daesh yet, Iraqi and coalition forces have increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in Mosul's west.
Unlike its previous battles against Daesh in urban settings in Iraq, the government made the decision to instruct Mosul civilians to remain in their homes. In the battles for Fallujah and Ramadi, those cities were entirely emptied of their civilian population while Iraqi forces fought to push out Daesh. In Mosul, the Iraqi government said it asked civilians to remain in place to prevent large-scale displacement.
When the operation to retake Mosul was launched, more than a million people were estimated to still be living in the city, Iraq's second-largest. Today, the United Nations estimates about 400,000 people remain trapped in Daesh-held neighbourhoods in western Mosul.
Amnesty International's report quoted survivors and eyewitnesses of airstrikes that have killed civilians as saying that "they did not try to flee as the battle got underway because they received repeated instructions from the Iraqi authorities to remain in their homes."

• MENA