Iraqi security officials have confirmed an airstrike carried out by apparent US coalition warplanes against the western half of the city of Mosul killed at least 11 civilians and wounded four others. The Pentagon has thus far not commented at all on the report.
As Iraq relies heavily on US airstrikes around one of its most populous cities, such strikes have become increasingly common, with various reports claiming scores, if not hundreds of civilians killed in airstrikes in recent weeks. In previous cases where US planes were involved, the Pentagon has promised investigations.
They’ve largely not followed through on that promise, however, with the official Pentagon statements on death tolls in Iraq and Syria claiming only a handful of civilians killed over the past several months, and 220 overall since the war began. Airwars, an NGO monitoring the situation, has suggested the toll is more than ten times that many.
This has been accomplished because the Pentagon abandons investigations if they believe they are “not credible,” so most are scrapped long before they get added to the final count. Even when the investigations get that far, the death toll is often dramatically reduced, with most of the slain labeled “suspects.”