Amid the fog of war, pinpointing blame for civilian deaths in Mosul is difficult

Because ISIL’s defensive strategy rests on preventing residents from leaving, condemning the Iraqi government for advising people to stay in their homes – as Amnesty appeared to do in a recent report – is a red herring, writes Florian Neuhof.

An Iraqi federal police officer carries an injured boy through a destroyed train station in west Mosul on March 19, 2017. Felipe Dana / AP Photo

ERBIL // The Amnesty International report spread like wildfire through newsrooms around the world.

Released less than two weeks after the horrific bombings in Mosul that killed at least 100 civilians on March 17 and sparked an international outcry over coalition air strikes in the city, its message resonated with prevailing sentiment.

“Civilians killed by airstrikes in their homes after they were told not to flee Mosul,” read Amnesty’s headline, as similar headings splashed across the pages of news outlets globally.

By linking civilian deaths to the Iraqi government’s plea for Mosul residents to stay put, Amnesty seemed to lay the blame largely at the door of the US-led coalition and the Iraqi forces fighting to liberate the country’s second largest city from ISIL.

The systematic use of civilians as human shields by the terror group does not absolve the coalition from guilt, Amnesty said.

But because ISIL’s defensive strategy rests on preventing residents from leaving, condemning the Iraqi government for advising people to stay in their homes is a red herring.

Insurgent snipers have shot civilians trying to cross the frontlines and rained mortar fire into liberated areas. ISIL fighters have locked up families in their houses while using their homes as firing positions, and parking their car bombs in residential areas.

The call to remain at home was borne out of desperation, not callousness.

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Avoiding civilian deaths ‘highest priority’ says US pilot fighting ISIL

The officer, who is currently deployed on the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier in the Arabian Gulf, told The National that although all targets are "heavily vetted" by the US-led anti-ISIL coalition, responsibility for avoiding civilian casualties also lies with the pilots carrying out the strikes. "The onus for everything that you do is always down to you as the aviator that's out there in the aircraft," said the F/A-18E pilot who did not want to be named for fear of ending up on an ISIL hit list.

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Before pointing the accusatory finger, it is important to look at the wider context of the battle – especially since there is yet no firm evidence that a step-up in the coalition’s air support has increased the overall civilian death toll in Mosul.

Iraqi Special Operations Forces, or ISOF, plunged into ISIL-held east Mosul on November 1.

Two months later, the elite outfit taking on the bulk of the fighting had become bogged down in the urban sprawl, and made only slow progress against an enemy hiding amongst the population and using suicide car bombs.

In response, the coalition changed its rules of engagement, including removing some of the barriers to calling in air strikes – inevitably heightening the risk of civilian casualties.

As a result of stronger air support, the Iraqi offensive picked up speed, and ISIL was swept out of east Mosul by the end of January.

The lesson was clear: more bombs and missiles were needed to vanquish a foe that used civilians as shields and car bombs as swords.

When the offensive to liberate west Mosul commenced on February 19, the same lesson was absorbed into its operational tactics. Iraqi commanders routinely passed co-ordinates of enemy positions to coalition teams on the ground, which called for air strikes or artillery fire without referring the request to a command centre far behind the front.

The change is in no small part due to political expediency.

An ISOF commander told The National that as early as November, his forces' headlong rush into Mosul was the result of Iraqi president Haider Al Abadi's order to enter the city as quickly as possible and to "just keep on going".

The Americans were also getting impatient. The coalition’s rules of engagement were changed under outgoing president Barack Obama, at a time when Donald Trump campaigned for office by criticising the restraint shown by the US air force.

But politics are not the only reason why coalition aircraft are quicker to strike.

Never numbering more than several thousand fighting troops, ISOF has been heavily depleted by three long months of fighting in east Mosul. While it is difficult to reliably assess the actual combat strength of Iraqi ground forces on the west bank – made up of ISOF, Iraq’s emergency response division, federal police units and elements of the army – it is a fraction of the 100,000 figure often cited as the number of combatants fighting ISIL in Mosul.

According to a recent US estimate, they still face around 2,000 fanatical insurgents in west Mosul.

In such conditions, no army in the world would advance without substantial air support.

There is as yet no definite link between the change in the rules of engagement and collateral damage in Mosul.

Monthly UN figures up to February suggest that civilian deaths in the Mosul offensive have not risen since the rules of engagement changed, although there has been a spike since the beginning of the operation in west Mosul.

Airwars, an organisation monitoring coalition air strikes in Iraq, recorded a spike in civilian deaths in the months of January to March. But other than a sharp rise in January, the number of confirmed or credible reports of civilian deaths due to air strikes specifically has so far not risen.

A clearer picture will likely emerge once west Mosul is no longer shrouded in the fog of war. Until then, the thick plumes of smoke from coalition air strikes will continue to rise above the embattled city.