WASHINGTON — A two-month investigation into a U.S. military airstrike in Iraq that caused some of the worst civilian casualties in decades found that the attack inadvertently set off explosives that gutted a sprawling apartment block and killed at least 105 civilians — far fewer than survivors and other witnesses have claimed.
Residents have insisted that several hundred people died. Iraqi civil defense forces initially put the figure at 278 but scaled that back to 142 on Thursday, after the U.S. report was released.
The deadly March 17 incident in Jadidah, a densely populated neighborhood in the war-torn Iraqi city of Mosul, garnered worldwide attention after photos of smoldering rubble mixed with lifeless bodies rippled across social media.
The Pentagon said military investigators, led by Air Force Brig. Gen. Matthew Isler, twice visited the site of the airstrike, spoke to witnesses and pored through more than 700 videos taken from coalition warplanes over a 10-day period before, during and after the airstrike.
According to the Pentagon account released Thursday, a U.S. military warplane dropped a 500-pound GPS-guided bomb on two Islamic State fighters firing on Iraqi forces from the roof of a building in Jadidah. The investigation said the GBU-38 bomb should have killed the pair and maintained the structural integrity of the two-story building, which was constructed of reinforced concrete and had 30-inch walls at points.
Instead, a massive explosion ripped through the neighborhood, reducing the apartment block to flaming wreckage, twisted rebar and a tomb for innocent civilians.
The investigation said 101 bodies were found in a main building, and four others were killed in a nearby building.
The Pentagon released an “executive summary” of the investigation, called a 15-6. The full report, which likely includes hundreds of documents, is classified.
Isler told reporters at the Pentagon via teleconference from Randolph Air Force Base in Texas that the massive blast was caused by explosives planted by the ISIS.
“No one saw ISIS move explosives into that area,” he said, using an acronym for the terrorist group. “However, there were multiple opportunities for that to happen, so we did not rule that out.”