Airwars assessment
Local eyewitnesses reported the deaths of 25 civilians following an air or artillery strike on the hermit area of West Mosul.
An unpublished Amnesty International field investigation was shared with Airwars: ““On the street we were staying, in my uncle’s house, three houses were levelled by one attack, around 12pm on 15 March. I don’t know if it was mortars, or artillery, or an airstrike. I think it was artillery, because I heard the “ssssss” sound before it hit. After the attack, 5 families were dead under the rubble – at least 25 people. One of the families was headed by “Abu Amar.” No IS fighters were killed. Our neighbours said that IS fighters ate lunch in one of the house, and they prayed there. Of course the strike came 20 minutes later, when the fighters were already gone. I saw the destroyed houses the next morning, when we ran out of the house. The houses were on our same street, just one house away from ours.”
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (1) [ collapse]
Attached to this civilian harm incident is a provisional reconciliation of the Pentagon's declassified assessment of this civilian harm allegation, based on matching date and locational information.
The declassified documents were obtained by Azmat Khan and the New York Times through Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits filed since March 2017, and are included alongside the corresponding press release published by the Pentagon. Airwars is currently analysing the contents of each file, and will update our own assessments accordingly.
US-led Coalition Assessment:
Original strike reports
For March 14th-15th: “Near Mosul, five strikes engaged five ISIS tactical units and an ISIS sniper team; destroyed 11 fighting positions, five mortar systems, three watercraft, two supply caches, two VBIEDs, a medium machine gun, a heavy machine gun, a rocket-propelled grenade system, an anti-air artillery system, and an ISIS headquarters; damaged 18 supply routes; and suppressed 11 ISIS mortar teams and six ISIS tactical units.” For March 15th – 16th: “Near Mosul, five strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units; destroyed 11 fighting positions, four mortar systems, two ISIS-held buildings, two vehicles, a medium machine gun, an artillery system, and a rocket-propelled grenade system; damaged 17 supply routes and three ISIS-held buildings; and suppressed six ISIS mortar teams and three ISIS tactical units.”