Mosul, at least 105 civilians killed in US air raid

The objective was two Islamic State snipers. The attack dates to March last. Raid ammunition  triggered explosives hidden in the building, causing it to collapse. In the lower floors were dozens of people dragged from their homes earlier.  Hidden bombs amplified blast damage at least four times. In the war, the US, like the Russians and the Syrians, kills civilians.

Baghdad (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The United States has admitted to killing of at least 105 Iraqi civilians in an air raid launched last March in Mosul, north of the country, long-held by the Islamic State (IS). Since last October, the area has been the scene of an offensive by  the Iraqi army and Kurdish militias, backed up by the air power of the US-led international coalition.

The US Central Command (CentCom) reports that it had targeted two IS snipers, using "precision ammo". However, shots triggered the explosives hidden by jihadists inside the building and caused the building to collapse, killing civilians trapped inside.

The US command points out that among the civilian casualties of the March attack there were also four people who were in an adjacent collapsed structure.

Eyewitnesses say there were another 36 people in the building who died in the context of the attack. However, for US experts, "the evidence" is "insufficient" to "determine their status".

In a declassified report on the affair, it emerges that civilians were littered in the low floors of the targeted building after being driven out of their homes by IS militiamen. The attackers, the note goes on, "could not have imagined the presence of civilians in the structure."

US official sources explain that the type of bombs used were to "minimize side effects," but the explosives hidden by jihadists amplified the effects and damage of the explosion by at least four times.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have abandoned Mosul since the start of operations to retake the city which fell to Daesh [Arabic acronym for IS] in the summer of 2014, along with most of the Nineveh Plain. In January 2017 the government of Baghdad announced the full "liberation" of the eastern sector, while the western area faces greater difficulties - narrow and ancient roads, overcrowding, civilians used as human shields - for coalition men and vehicles.

In the struggle against IS - and against Syrian Bashar Assad - the United States has often blamed the Syrians and their Russians allies of causing civilian casualties.