Mosul bombing survivors: house packed with civilians became death trap

Survivors and witnesses of a US airstrike in Mosul that killed more than 100 civilians have told journalists the building they were living in was not an Islamic State group target.

Key points:

• Coalition aircraft bombed Al Jadidah, in western Mosul, on March 17
• Survivors say the building was full of families taking refuge
• The UN says more than 1,590 residences have been destroyed in western Mosul

The bombing was the deadliest single incident in the months-long battle for the Iraqi city.

After the strike, US officials suggested Islamic State group militants may have crammed the building with people, booby-trapped it with explosives, then lured in an airstrike by firing from the roof.

“Armed men in the house I was in? Never,” Ali Zanoun, one of only two people in the building to survive the March 17 strike, told the Associated Press.

Life on Mosul’s front line

Mosul is in a state of suspended animation, with control of the city split between Iraqi Government forces and the Islamic State group, Middle East correspondent Matt Brown writes.

He spent five days buried under the rubble of the building, drinking from a bottle of nose drops, with the bodies of more than 20 members of his family in the wreckage around him.

Increased use of bombardment has made the fight for Mosul’s western sector, which began in mid-February, dramatically more destructive than fighting for its eastern half.

More than 1,590 residential buildings have been destroyed in western Mosul, based on analysis of satellite imagery and information from local researchers, the UN said last week.

Airstrikes killed 1,254 people in western Mosul in March and April alone, according to Iraq Body Count, an independent group documenting casualties in the war, cross-checking media reports with information from hospitals, officials and other sources.

In comparison, an estimated 1,600 civilians were killed or wounded from all causes during the 100-day campaign to recapture Mosul’s less densely populated eastern half, which ended in mid-January.

Official casualty figures from the Pentagon are far lower — it said over the weekend that it had confirmed coalition airstrikes killed at least 352 civilians in Iraq and Syria combined since the campaign against IS started in 2014.

Source: Mosul bombing survivors recall how house packed with civilians became death trap – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)