BAGHDAD — As the fight for the Iraqi city of Mosul drags on, many might ask: Why has it taken the combined militaries of the United States and Iraq backed by an international coalition more than two years to dislodge a small force of militants lacking heavy weaponry?
Donald Trump raised the question during his campaign, promising to turn up the heat against the Islamic State group if he became president. Now the growing controversy over the high number of civilian casualties believed caused by recent U.S. airstrikes has touched on a major part of the answer: The militants are mingled among tens of thousands of civilians in Mosul and are willing to take the population down with them.
Inevitably, the more force brought to bear to crush the fighters, the greater the danger civilians will be killed.
To avoid that, strikes must be more surgical and more cautiously used, and the battle turns to street-by-street fighting where the technological edge is often neutralized. Minimizing civilian deaths is more than just a humanitarian concern: Bloodshed can fuel public resentments that push some to join militant groups.
Another factor is whether the extremists have support from at least part of the population. It’s even further complicated if they can claim to be fighting for national liberation — as, for example, with the Hamas group in its battles with Israel in Gaza.
After a March 17 explosion that residents say killed at least 100 people in Mosul, the U.S. military acknowledged an airstrike was involved. But the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said investigations may reveal a more complicated explanation, including the possibility that militants rigged the building with explosives after forcing civilians inside.
Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend said recent civilian casualties in Mosul were “fairly predictable” given the densely populated urban neighborhoods the IS fighters are defending against Iraqi troops.
Over the past 2½ years, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. special forces and coalition airstrikes have managed to push IS out of most of the territory they overran in the summer of 2014 — retaking three major cities and numerous smaller communities. The fight for Mosul, launched in mid-October, has been the longest battle yet.
With each fight, the Islamic State group has adapted its use of civilians as human shields, creating increasingly deadly battlefields.