Rising Concerns Over High Civilians Casualties In The War Against The Islamic State



L.A. Times: U.S. military officer in charge of approving airstrikes defends procedures used to prevent civilian deaths

As the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State faces increasing criticism for killing civilians in airstrikes on the dense neighborhoods of west Mosul, a senior U.S. military officer in Iraq defended the procedures used to prevent such deaths.

“We are very careful about how much collateral damage we are going to cause,” Brig. Gen. Rick Uribe, who is responsible for approving strikes in many parts of Iraq, said Thursday.

“We’re here to defeat them,” he said of the Islamic State militants, “and we’re going to do it the moral way.”

To illustrate the procedures — and the difficulties Iraqi forces and their international backers face in targeting militants without hurting civilians — Uribe played two black-and-white surveillance videos for The Times during a visit to the coalition’s joint operations center and “strike cell” in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Both were taken within the last month in west Mosul and show militants using people as shields.

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