Over 40,000 Civilians Massacred in Battle for Mosul

[image: AP Photo/Felipe Dana]In all US wars of aggression, human lives don’t matter – the safety and welfare of civilians entirely ignored.

Claims otherwise are bald-faced lies. A duplicitous Pentagon statement said “(w)e set the highest standards for protecting civilians.”

“(O)ur dedication, diligence, and discipline in prosecuting our combat operations while protecting civilians, is without precedent in recorded history of warfare.”

Cold, hard, indisputable facts on the ground reveal otherwise. Millions of casualties in all US wars of aggression are clear evidence of its imperial brutality.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein condemned what he called the “massive loss of civilian lives in Mosul.” The appalling body count mounted daily throughout months of battle.

According to intelligence reported by The (London) Independent, over 40,000 civilians were massacred during months of fighting in Mosul – mostly from indiscriminate US terror-bombing.

The Independent: “(D)evastation in the city is huge: the closer one gets to the fighting in the centre, the greater the signs of destruction from air strikes.”

“Wherever Isis made a stand, Iraqi forces called in the US-led coalition to use its massive firepower to turn whole blocks into heaps of rubble and smashed masonry.”

“(M)any districts are deserted and only passable because bulldozers have cut a path through the debris.”

Likely tens of thousands of corpses remain buried under rubble, their identity never to be known. Everyone in Mosul lost a relative or friend. Sporadic fighting continues.

Former senior Iraqi foreign minister, later finance minister Hoshyar Zebari said countless numbers of bodies “are still buried under the rubble. The level of human suffering is immense.”

“Kurdish intelligence believes that over 40,000 civilians have been killed as a result of massive firepower used against them” – mainly indiscriminate US terror-bombing.

The US-installed puppet regime in Baghdad “is indifferent to what has happened,” he stressed, adding “the soul of Mosul has gone and its iconic buildings are destroyed.”

“(A)n unimaginable level of human suffering (occurred) with more than one million people displaced.”

ISIS wasn’t defeated in Mosul. Washington redeployed most of its fighters to Syria. Along with other terrorist groups, they’re used as imperial foot soldiers in both countries and elsewhere.

The scourge they represent remains. Endless US wars continue, defenseless civilians paying the greatest price.

Create your own review

Average rating:  

 0 reviews

US Massacring Civilians in Syria While Pretending to Combat ISIS

[image: Reuters]Civilians suffer most in all wars. In post-9/11 US conflicts, millions perished, were wounded or maimed for life, tens of millions more displaced.

For most, their welfare and futures were destroyed on the phony pretext of combating terrorism Washington created and supports.

Terror-bombing Iraq, Syria and other countries has nothing to do with liberating them from ISIS and likeminded groups – everything to do with imperial dominance, resource plunder and exploiting the people of ravaged nations.

Media scoundrels glorify them in the name of peace – supporting what demands condemnation. Opposing them is considered unpatriotic, the human toll of no consequence in all US wars.

Mass slaughter and destruction reflect strategic decisions taken in waging them.

America pretends to be combating ISIS in Syria while providing support.

Russia demands a clear explanation in detail about the US downing of a Syrian Su-22 aircraft. All that’s forthcoming will be Washington claiming the right of self-defense while pursuing naked aggression.

Moscow continues to believe accommodation with America can be found – despite consistent betrayal numerous times before.

Deals it agrees to are flagrantly breaching virtually always – proving it can never be trusted.

Chances for cooperation between Washington and Moscow are nil. Believing otherwise is foolhardy.

RT Arabic interviewed former Raqqa resident Abu Abdullah. In fleeing the city, a US-led airstrike killed his daughter, he explained, saying:

“Coalition planes struck the district of Dariya. I was with my daughter at the time, and just like that, she perished in the blast.”

“I lost my leg. More often than not, US planes hit civilians, not” ISIS as claimed.

The cold, hard true about US aggression is that “mostly civilians (are dying) in the Dariya district, (including) the agricultural university, the Al-Hal market, (and) hospitals. All these buildings suffer from coalition bombings. No place is safe.”

The only way out of the Raqqa cauldron is by paying hundreds of dollars to smugglers, he said – likely also true in Mosul, US terror-bombing massacring civilians there as well.

Media scoundrels report none of this, suppressing the dark side of all US imperial wars – most Americans none the wiser.

Civilians Harmed Most in US War Theaters

[image: Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images]Massacring civilians in US war theaters, deceptively called “collateral damage,” is perhaps the last refuge of ruthless imperial warmaking.

Civilians are harmed most in all wars, notably America’s – millions of lives lost post-9/11 alone, high crimes ignored in the mainstream.

Sociologist Emile Durkheim once said, “(t)he immorality of war depends entirely on the leaders who willed it.”

In America, it’s bipartisan complicity – top administration and Pentagon officials, along with Congress funding lawless aggression.

In his opening Nuremberg address, Justice Robert Jackson denounced the “men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberative and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched.”

He called them “men of station and rank (who don’t) soil (their) hands with blood.” They use “lesser folk” to do their dirty work, committing crimes of war and against humanity to enhance their status and privilege – the human toll of no consequence.

International, constitutional and US statute laws are flagrantly violated in all American wars – of choice, not in self-defense post-WW II, naked aggression each time waged.

Under the 1907 Hague Regulations, Fourth Geneva, Geneva’s Common Article III, and other international laws, civilians are protected persons.

So is civilian property and other nonmilitary-related sites. Attacking them is prohibited. War crimes are clearly defined. Principles of distinction and proportionality apply as follows:

Distinction refers to distinguishing between combatants and military targets v. civilians and non-military ones. Attacking latter ones are war crimes except when civilians take direct part in hostilities.

Proportionality prohibits disproportionate, indiscriminate force, likely to cause damage or loss of lives.

Precautions must be taken to avoid and minimize incidental loss of civilian lives, injuries, and damage to non-military sites.

Under Fourth Geneva, noncombatants must be given “effective advance warning” and “neutralized zones” to be as protected as possible.

In all its war theaters, America flagrantly violates core laws on what’s prohibited in combat – committing naked aggression and high crimes against peace in all its conflicts.

Activist Vanessa Beeley spent much time in Syria, witnessing firsthand the horrors of Washington’s war, noting “the hypocrisy” in plain sight “from the US(-led) coalition.”

Terror-bombing Raqqa alone caused a “staggering loss of civilian life,” according to the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Syria war.

It remains ongoing, likely the worst to come, including use of white phosphorous able to burn flesh to the bone on contact, cluster bombs, depleted uranium and other banned weapons.

Beeley: “What we are seeing in Raqqa is no attempt to protect civilians” – the same horrors ongoing for months in and around Mosul, Iraq, thousands of civilians massacred in cold blood, by terror-bombing and US-supported ISIS terrorists.

America wages wars for conquest, dominance and profit. Claiming humanitarian intervention and democracy building justification are despicable Big Lies. Supported by media scoundrels compounds them.

US-led terror-bombing in all its war theaters flagrantly violates core rule of law principles.

Asked if a greater bloodbath in Raqqa than already is likely, Beeley explained it’s hard to know “because it is very hard to determine exactly how many civilians” remain in the city. So many were displaced by warfare.

The horror of what’s ongoing in all US war theaters is virtually unreported in the West.

High crimes are suppressed. Most Americans know nothing about the dark side of US imperial aggression – endlessly waged for power and profits, no other reasons.

It’s Official, Pentagon Will Now Keep Troop Count in Iraq & Syria Secret

The U.S. Central Command recently announced that troop numbers in Iraq and Syria will no longer be reported to the public. In its announcement, CENTCOM spokesman Army Col. John Thomas declared that “capabilities, not numbers,” should be the area of focus, and the public will be given general estimates of troop sizes in the future.

Jason Ditz of antiwar.com points out that the Obama administration was already less than forthcoming about the number of soldiers sent to these areas by utilizing a variety of tactics, including “deliberately omitting large numbers of troops from the official count by labeling them ‘temporary."”

The Pentagon’s announcement comes during a time in which the U.S. military’s recent use of airstrikes is under fresh scrutiny and stands accused of causing deaths of hundreds of civilians in recent weeks, including strikes in Mosul last week that killed an unconfirmed, but reportedly numerous, number of noncombatants.

According to Reuters regarding the strike in Mosul, “Eyewitnesses from Mosul and Iraqi officials have said last week’s strike on Islamic State targets may have collapsed homes where rescue officials say as many as 200 people were buried in the rubble.” Reuters described this event as “one of the deadliest single incidents for civilians in recent memory in any major conflict involving the U.S. military.”

In the Pentagon’s acknowledgment of the Mosul strike and announcement of its investigation into the incident, Army Col. Joseph Scrocca admitted that “we believe a coalition strike contributed in at least some way to the civilian casualties.”

In addition, reports have surfaced alleging that recent U.S. airstrikes in Syria have led to significant civilian deaths. One strike that was launched in northern Syria in mid-March, reportedly targeted at a building “that local officials said was a mosque filled with worshippers at evening prayer” and also resulted in civilian casualties. Another strike by a U.S.-led coalition at a school in Raqqa that was being “used as refugee centre,” according to The Guardian. The Guardian’s report notes that “Over the past eight months, there have been four cases in which US planes or drones have been blamed for mass civilian casualties in Syria.”

READ MORE:  Obama Extends "Emergency" War on Terror Powers as US Says Al Qaeda No Longer Target

The new U.S. presidential administration has unsurprisingly provided little change in its approach to foreign policy and the war on terror; in fact, President Trump is currently considering sending at least 1,000 more troops to Syria. As Ditz noted, the government has long lacked transparency regarding troop numbers in Iraq and Syria, and it appears that while CENTCOM may be seeking to avoid further criticism over specific deployment numbers by simply eliminating these reports. However, this increase in secrecy that further places civilians in the dark will undoubtedly exacerbate tensions across the globe in regards to American accountability.

Another troubling revelation from Thomas is the military’s dismissal of making changes to airstrike policy. Thomas stated that General Joseph Votel, the head of CENTCOM, “is not looking into changing the way we operate other than to say our processes are good and we want to make sure we live by those processes.”

Up to 13,000 Secretly Executed in Syrian Prison According to Amnesty International

February 7, 2017   |   admintam

(MEE) As many as 13,000 people were hanged in five years at a notorious Syrian government prison near Damascus, Amnesty International said on Tuesday, accusing the government of a “policy of extermination”.

Titled Human slaughterhouse: mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya prison, Amnesty’s damning report is based on interviews with 84 witnesses, including guards, detainees and judges.

“Saydnaya military prison is where the Syrian state quietly slaughters its own people. The victims are overwhelmingly ordinary civilians who are thought to oppose the government. Since 2011, thousands of people have been extrajudicially executed in mass hangings, carried out at night and in the utmost secrecy,” read the report.

The rights group interviewed dozens of people, including former prisoners, guards, judges, lawyers and experts.

It found that at least once a week between 2011 and 2015, groups of up to 50 people were taken out of their prison cells for arbitrary trials, beaten and hanged “in the middle of the night and in total secrecy”.

“Throughout this process, they remain blindfolded. They do not know when or how they will die until the noose was placed around their necks,” the rights group wrote.

Most of the victims were civilians believed to be opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“They kept them (hanging) there for 10 to 15 minutes,” a former judge who witnessed the executions said.

“For the young ones, their weight wouldn’t kill them. The officers’ assistants would pull them down and break their necks,” he said.

Amnesty said the practices amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, but were likely still taking place.

Thousands of detainees are held in the military-run prison, one of the country’s largest detention centres located 30km north of Damascus.

Amnesty accused the Syrian government of carrying out a “policy of extermination” there by repeatedly torturing detainees and withholding food, water and medical care.

Prisoners were raped or forced to rape each other, and guards would feed detainees by tossing meals onto the cell floor, which was often covered in dirt and blood.

According to the report, between 5,000 and 13,000 inmates died in Saydnaya alone.

‘Hidden, monstrous campaign’

A twisted set of “special rules” governed the facility: detainees were not allowed to speak and must assume certain positions when guards enter their cells.

“Every day there would be two or three dead people in our wing… I remember the guard would ask how many we had. He would say, ‘Room number one – how many? Room number two – how many?’ and on and on,” said Nader, a former detainee whose name has been changed.

After one fierce day of beating, Nader said, 13 people died in a single wing of the prison.

One former military officer said he could hear “gurgling” as people were hanged in an execution room below.

“If you put your ears on the floor, you could hear the sound of a kind of gurgling,” said Hamid, who was arrested in 2011.

“We were sleeping on top of the sound of people choking to death. This was normal for me then,” he told Amnesty.

The group has previously said that more than 17,700 people were estimated to have died in government custody across Syria since the country’s conflict erupted in March 2011.

“The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign, authorised at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent within the Syrian population,” said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty’s Beirut office.

“The cold-blooded killing of thousands of defenceless prisoners, along with the carefully crafted and systematic programmes of psychological and physical torture that are in place inside Saydnaya prison cannot be allowed to continue,” she said.

A probe by the United Nations last year accused Assad’s government of a policy of “extermination” in its jails.

---

This article (Up to 13,000 Secretly Executed in Syrian Prison According to Amnesty International) by MEE and agencies originally appeared on MiddleEastEye.net and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

350,000 Children are Trapped and Under Threat of Execution in Mosul

January 30, 2017   |   admintam

(MEE) Some 350,000 children are trapped in siege-like conditions in Mosul, under threat of execution if they try to flee, according to a report released by Save the Children on Monday.

As Iraqi forces continued to make advances against the Islamic State group in their last Iraqi stronghold, human rights groups have expressed increasing concern about the risk to children and other civilians from artillery and explosive weaponry.

Save the Children’s Iraq country director, Maurizio Crivallero, urged forces fighting in the city to take every precaution to avoid civilians deaths.

“To a child it doesn’t matter where the bombs come from – it’s where they land that matters,” he said.

“The impact of explosive weapons in west Mosul is likely to be deadly and indiscriminate. We must ensure that every effort humanly possible is made to protect children and their families from harm.”

The organization described the situation in Mosul as “increasingly desperate”. Around 750,000 civilians are out of the reach of aid agencies and food, water and basic supplies are scarce.

“I talked to my family in west Mosul: they are staying inside and don’t have anything to eat or drink,” said Mahmoud, a medic living in a recaptured area of eastern Mosul, speaking to Save the Children.

“No one is able to get the children anything, there’s no food or milk for babies – the markets are empty and the supplies they stockpiled have almost run out.”

“There’s a huge risk for families trying to flee – if ISIS see a family trying to escape, they kill them on the spot. I tried to get mine out and agreed with a smuggler to bring them here, but he opted out because he saw a family of nine killed in front of his eyes.”

The World Food Programme said on Friday it had halved the food rations distributed to 1.4 million Iraqis displaced in the war against IS because of delays in payments of funds from donor states.

“This year somehow we are receiving commitments from donors a little bit late. We are talking with donors but we don’t have enough money as of yet,” said Inger Marie Vennize, spokesperson for the UN agency.

“We have had to reduce (the rations) as of this month.”

The WFP is talking to the United States – its biggest donor – Germany, Japan and others to secure funds to restore full rations, she added.

“The 50 percent cuts in monthly rations affect over 1.4 million people across Iraq,” Vennize said.

The impact is already being felt in camps east of Mosul. About 160,000 people have been displaced since the military campaign to recapture Mosul was launched in October.

“They gave us a good amount of food in the beginning, but now they have reduced it,” said Omar Shukri Mahmoud at the Hassan Sham camp.

“They are giving an entire family the food supply of one person … And there is no work at all … we want to go back home,” he added.

“We are a big family and this ration is not going to be enough,” said 39-year-old Safa Shaker, who has a family of 11.

“We escaped from Daesh (Islamic State) in order to have a chance to live and now we came here and they have cut the aid. How are we supposed to live?” she said as she cooked for the family.

About three million people have been displaced from their homes in Iraq since 2014, when IS took over large areas of the country and of neighboring Syria.

---

This article (350,000 Children are Trapped and Under Threat of Execution in Mosul) by MEE and agencies originally appeared on MiddleEastEye.net and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

Human Rights Watch Releases Disturbing Report on US-Backed War in Yemen

January 16, 2017   |   Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) — Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released its 2017 World Report on the current conflict in Yemen, and the latest update paints a very disturbing picture of the U.S.- and U.K.- backed war of aggression the Saudis are currently waging. The report makes clear the depth of U.S. and U.K. support for the current war in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, as well as the potential legal ramifications of this support — something the rights group has previously warned about.

Between the eruption of the Saudi-led bombardment in March 2015 and October of last year, the report explains, the U.N. documented the deaths of at least 4,125 civilians. A majority of those deaths were caused by the coalition. Further, the U.N. recently came forward stating over 10,000 civilians have been killed in the war to date, with 40,000 others wounded. This is a “low estimate,”  and the U.N. figure does not include deaths recorded by hospitals and health centers.

The report confirms that the coalition has used internationally banned cluster munitions and deployed countless air strikes that have indiscriminately or disproportionately killed and wounded thousands of civilians.

Most surprising is that although HRW receives a large amount of funding from Saudi Arabia, the HRW report has not bought into the official Saudi-U.S. narrative that Iran is behind the current war in Yemen. Instead, the report fails to so much as even mention Iran. The opening statement reads:

“The Saudi Arabia-led coalition’s aerial and ground campaign against Houthi forces and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh continued in 2016.”

In doing so, HRW has pinpointed the current cause of the conflict besieging Yemen: former president Saleh still retains the loyalty of the armed forces, who fight alongside the Houthi rebels. In essence, the Saudis are attempting to bomb the will of the people into accepting a leader they already ousted.

The HRW report continues:

“Human Rights Watch has documented 58 apparently unlawful coalition airstrikes since the start of the campaign, which have killed nearly 800 civilians and hit homes, markets, hospitals, schools, civilian businesses, and mosques. Some attacks may amount to war crimes. These include airstrikes on a crowded market in northern Yemen on March 15 that killed 97 civilians, including 25 children, and another on a crowded funeral in Sanaa on October that killed over 100 civilians and wounded hundreds more.” [emphasis added]

As Anti-Media previously reported, the U.S.-backed coalition is intentionally starving Yemen’s inhabitants. The HRW report confirms Saudi Arabia’s intentions to destroy the basic livelihood of Yemen’s civilian population:

“Repeated coalition airstrikes on factories and other civilian economic structures raise serious concerns that the coalition deliberately sought to inflict damage to Yemen’s limited production capacity. Human Rights Watch investigated 18 apparently unlawful strikes, some of which used US or UK-supplied weapons, on 14 civilian economic sites. The strikes killed 130 civilians and wounded 173 more. Following the attacks, many of the factories ended production and hundreds of workers lost their livelihoods.”

The report also outlines the use of cluster bombs, indiscriminate attacks, deliberate Saudi air raids on health facilities and avenues for humanitarian access, the Houthis’ use of children in the war, and the key international actors in the conflict (remember, Iran is not even mentioned), to name a few.

Generally speaking, the war in Yemen receives very little media coverage in Western nations. As such, it has hardly been recognized as an issue in the much-anticipated transition from an Obama presidency to a Trump presidency. Under peace prize-winning President Obama, the U.S. made over $115 billion in arms sales to the Saudi regime. It remains unclear what will happen to this war under a bomb-loving Trump administration.

One thing is clear, however. The war in Yemen would be over tomorrow if the U.S. withdrew its support for the brutal Saudi-led campaign.

---

This article (Human Rights Watch Releases Disturbing Report on US-Backed War in Yemen) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Darius Shahtahmasebi and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

US-Led Airstrikes Kill Dozens of Civilians in Iraq

January 16, 2017   |   admintam

(ANTIWAR) Adding to the ever-growing civilian toll of the invasion of the major ISIS city of Mosul, warplanes from the US-led coalition attacked a house in the Jadida District, believed to belong to a senior ISIS commander, causing widespread damage in the area and killing between 25 and 30 civilian bystanders.

The US says they are still looking into the reports and could not yet confirm if their planes were responsible, but adding insult to injury, the reports out of Mosul suggest the intended target wasn’t even at home at the time, so he did not end up among the substantial casualties.

Centcom confirmed that they “routinely” launch airstrikes in the area, and that the location in question appears to be in close proximity to coalition strikes that day, meaning it is presumed to be among them. This comes amid growing UN concerns about civilian casualties in Mosul.

The UN’s most recent comments warned that the civilian casualties in Mosul are far higher than yet acknowledged, saying that the expected civilian casualties in fighting in a large city would be 15% up to 20% of the casualties in the fight, and that rather their indications are that about half of all casualties in Mosul are civilian bystanders.

---

This article (US-Led Airstrikes Kill Dozens of Civilians in Iraq) by Jason Ditz, originally appeared on AntiWar.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

US Airstrike Kills At Least 10 Civilians In Syria

November 22, 2016   |   admintam

(ANTIWAR) In an embarrassing bit of timing, as US officials were railing against the Syrian military for targeting civilians at the UN, US warplanes were attacking a cotton mill in northeastern Syria, an attack which killed at least 10 civilians.

It is unclear why the cotton mill, in the village of Salhiyeh, was targeted in the first place, but it is north of the ISIS capital city of Raqqa, which Kurdish YPG forces are in the process of surrounding. The Kurdish forces are almost exclusively north of the city, which is also the direction civilians are fleeing Raqqa.

Among the civilians slain in the cotton mill attack were a displaced family of six who were sheltering in the area. Also killed were three employees and another bystander from the village.

This is the latest in a growing number of incidents in which US airstrikes supporting Kurdish offensives in Syria have killed innocent civilians. Despite these being well documented, official Pentagon figures dramatically under-report the actual death toll of US strikes.

---

This article (US Airstrike Kills At Least 10 Civilians In Syria) by Jason Ditz, originally appeared on AntiWar.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

US Airstrike Kills 20 Civilians in Syria

November 10, 2016   |   admintam

(ANTIWAR) The first reported civilian casualties of the US-backed invasion of the ISIS capital of Raqqa occurred this week in the nearby village of al-Heisha, just 40 km north of the city, where a US airstrike hit a large number of civilians.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 20 civilians killed in the attack and 32 others wounded, again all civilians. The Pentagon has confirmed that it conducted the strikes that were reported in the area to have caused the casualties.

The Kurdish YPG and its affiliate force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), however, insisted the Syrian Observatory’s report was made up by ISIS, and that there were only ISIS fighters in the village. They also claimed that any civilians killed were “human shields,” even though they’d already denied any of them were present in the first place.

Locals from within the village say that those who were able fled, but many were forced to remain when ISIS fighters arrived and wouldn’t let anyone else go. ISIS had brought heavy weapons into the village, which apparently precipitated the strikes.

---

This article (US Airstrike Kills 20 Civilians in Syria) by Jason Ditz, originally appeared on AntiWar.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

Pentagon Confirms US Airstrike Killed Over 30 Afghan Civilians Last Week

November 7, 2016   |   admintam

(ANTIWAR) Over the weekend, Pentagon officials confirmed that the US was behind airstrikes against the north Afghan village of Bouz Kandahari, which they conceded “likely resulted in civilian casualties.” The attack was initially reported to have killed at least 30 civilians, with subsequent reports from locals saying they’d buried 36 killed in the attack.

The Thursday morning strikes were called in after a pair of US soldiers were killed in fighting with the Taliban, and Afghan officials claimed the locals were being used as “human shields” by the Taliban when the airstrikes were launched against the village.

The villagers, however, insist that the claims are false, that there were no Taliban in the village at the time, pointing out that no Taliban were hit in the airstrikes. The Pentagon has subsequently promised an investigation, saying they need to determine the facts.

Despite angry protests from the villagers, and promises of investigations from the US and UN both predicated on the idea that large numbers of civilians were killed, the Afghan Defense Ministry continues to change its story to prevent the attacks as justified. Previously claiming fighters were hiding in the city, they now report that the Taliban leadership lived in the village and were targeted, even though the weekend burials appear to have included no military-aged males.

---

This article (Pentagon Confirms US Airstrike Killed Over 30 Afghan Civilians Last Week) by Jason Ditz, originally appeared on AntiWar.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

US Airstrike Kills Eight Civilians Including Three Children in Iraq

November 2, 2016   |   admintam

(ANTIWAR) On October 22, US warplanes carried out airstrikes against the village of Fadhiliya, a few kilometers away from the city of Mosul. Two of the strikes hit a civilian house within, killing eight civilians from a single family, including three children.

It is unclear why the report of this airstrike is just coming to light now, over a week later, but it marks the first significant civilian casualties in a US airstrike related to the Mosul invasion. A previous incident the day before, initially reported as a US airstrike against a Shi’ite mosque near Kirkuk, is now being reported as likely an attack by the Iraqi Air Force, and not the US.

Pentagon officials confirmed conducting a number of airstrikes against Fadhiliya at the time of the civilian deaths, and say they are conducting “further investigation” to determine all the facts related to the attack. Saying they take the allegations seriously.

As the fighting around Mosul advances into more densely populated areas around the city itself, the concerns are growing that such airstrikes are going to cause a number of civilian casualties. This is doubly true because now Iraq is warning residents of Mosul against fleeing, and the US has announced its intention to carry out airstrikes to prevent “fleeing ISIS” from getting away.

---

This article (US Airstrike Kills Eight Civilians Including Three Children in Iraq) by Jason Ditz, originally appeared on AntiWar.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

US Accused of War Crime After Airstrike Kills 15-20 Civilians During Funeral Procession

The Pentagon is denying involvement.