Nearly 10,000 Civilians Killed In Battle For ISIS-Held Mosul

According to an Associated Press investigation, some 10,000 civilians were killed—more than ten times the number previously reported—in the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State. The figure was derived by cross-referencing independent databases of non-governmental organizations as well as from a list of names of people killed during the operation obtained from Mosul’s morgue. Iraqi government and accompanying Shiite forces, backed by a U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition, were found to be responsible for at least 3,200 deaths from airstrikes, artillery fire or mortar rounds between October 2016 and the fall of the city in July 2017.  The AP study attributes another third of the killings to the Islamic State’s final frenzy of violence, whereas the specific causes of the remainder of the deaths could not be identified given the chaotic nature of the battle. The AP estimate—which does not include thousands of people murdered by Islamic State who are believed to be buried in mass graves in and around Mosul—is in stark contrast to the 1,260 civilians Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi says were killed in the mission. For its part, the U.S.-led coalition has not offered an overall figure. Baghdad earlier this month declared victory over the Islamic State after neutralizing the terror group’s final pockets of resistance along the shared border with Syria.