Mosul

A volunteer carries the bodies of civilians killed in a US air strike in Mosul, Iraq on March 24, 2017. (AP/Felipe Dana)

When Russian and Syrian forces were bombarding ‘rebel’-held East Aleppo last year, newspapers and television screens were full of anguished reporting about the plight of civilians killed, injured, trapped, traumatised or desperately fleeing. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, both Official Enemies, were denounced and demonised, in accordance with the usual propaganda script.

Anyone casting their mind back to the Western media’s reporting of the battle to liberate eastern Aleppo from the Al-Qaeda led Jihadis in the second half of last year will remember the vivid reporting of supposed Russian and Syrian government atrocities the Western media and Western governments engaged in during the battle.
Thus the Russians and the Syrians were accused of terror bombings of civilians, of deliberately bombing hospitals, with the Syrians specifically accused of ‘barrel-bombing’ ie. of dropping inaccurate improvised home made bombs to kill civilians.

Mosul, Iraq. (Photo: Twitter)
Dr Bouthaina Shaaban, Political and Media Advisor to Syrian President, Bashar Al Assad.

ISIS will now shift to using guerrilla tactics and will continue to feed off the state’s institutionalized sectarianism until the Iraqi government pulls itself together.

(MEE) — After fierce fighting which started on 17 October in Mosul and lasted more than eight months, turning most of the city’s neighborhoods into rubble, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced a victory over the Islamic State (IS) group on 10 July.

Residents carry the body of several civilians killed in a US air strike in Mosul, Iraq on March 24, 2017. (AP/Felipe Dana)
The US-led coalition attacking the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria killed as many as 744 civilians in June, an independent monitor said Wednesday.
Airwars – a London-based collective of journalists and researchers that uses social media, eyewitness reports and other sources to compile its data – said the concurrent assaults on Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq were often “devastating.”

In Raqqa, the American led coalition is a self-described anti-ISIS force but in reality hundreds of civilians have been the victims of what can only be called genocide. Areas like Al-Mansora,  Al-Jomailieh and many others in the countryside of Raqqa Governorate are filled the bodies of the murdered, including entire families. Many others still have been left displaced with no safe places to seek or obtain shelter.
 

Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend said Iraq’s government had expressed interest in having US and coalition troops stay.

(MEE) — The United States and several coalition countries want to maintain a military footprint in Iraq after the eventual defeat of the Islamic State (IS) group, a top US general said on Tuesday.

(ANTIWAR.COM) A new report from human rights group Amnesty International is harshly critical of the tactics used by Iraq forces and their allies (i.e. the US) in the invasion and occupation of the ISIS-held city of Mosul, saying they flagrantly violated international law and might amount to war crimes.

Russia’s Foreign Minsiter Sergey Lavrov has slammed the lack of coordination of civilian evacuations in Mosul which contrasts sharply with the humanitarian corridors through which Russia evacuated civilians during the Battle of Aleppo in Syria during late 2016. East Aleppo’s humanitarian corridors were also used to supply locals starved by terrorists with essential food and medical supplies.