Iraqi official: Anti-IS airstrike killed, wounded civilians

Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Erbil in northern Iraq, said the incident was not helpful amid the major ongoing operation to take ISIL-held Mosul in the north.

The Iraqi security forces seized the hospital but then pulled back “under heavy enemy fire”. “Sometimes we are obliged to delay some patients’ (operations)”.

The speaker of Iraq’s parliament, Salim al-Juburi condemned the air strike.

The official said that the coalition against ISIS has diminished their power and have shrunk them to their last remaining power centres in Mosul and Raqa. This is the big problem.

The hospital is already short of nurses. “The 9th Division’s situation is hard and they have called for support”.

Another effect of the economic crisis is the hospital’s shrinking inventory of medicines and supplies.

Barwari spoke to Rudaw about the ongoing offensive to recapture Mosul. Some suppliers have begun refusing to ship orders to the hospital on credit, after years without being paid, Mama said. “They are more than skilled at “we’re under a lot of pressure right now, guys, let’s go low”.

Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitary forces have retaken significant ground in recent weeks on a western front targeting the town of Tal Afar, which lies on the road linking Mosul to Syria.

At least one suspected Islamic State fighter turned up for treatment at the hospital, claiming to be with a civilian family, Mama said. “He wouldn’t be satisfied. but he knows I am a wolf, that I am a fighter and that I am like a man”, she said.

The coalition has also provided training and weapons to local forces fighting the IS. Of the 100 or so Iraqi soldiers trapped there, almost all were killed or wounded, he said.

“ISIS is using residential buildings as bases for its attacks on the Iraqi forces”.

Geddo said he and his colleagues were haunted by the memory of Fallujah where some 65,000 people fled the city over three days during an operation to retake the city from IS in June, quickly overwhelming humanitarian efforts.

“We have been relentless against them ever since in coordination with the GNA, particularly as it came to moving in on Sirte”, Davis said. “Killing dozens of civilians only to target a handful of terrorists is clearly a massacre against innocent civilians”, he said.Karbouli said it raised questions about the accuracy of intelligence used to target Islamic State fighters, and Salmani said Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi must act.

“These soldiers are all my brothers”.

Numerous hospital’s patients, however, were civilians. They also need to fully respect the laws of war if they want to signal to Iraq’s civilians that they take those standards more seriously than ISIS does. This tactic has “prevented the army from using its heavy weapons during the clashes”.

The official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the air campaign had been the “most pristine” ever in terms of avoiding civilian casualties.