21st Century Wire says…
Just in time for the US presidential election day, the White House has finally launched its much anticipated US-led assault to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, from ISIS terrorist brigades.
The ‘Assault on Mosul’ has enjoyed much media fanfare in the west, and seems to be a stage-managed western media event, complete with endless pristine images of US-equipped Iraqi military forces, all lined up neatly out in the desert – and far away from the city limits.
The Obama Administration’s goal with Mosul: maximise good-looking US-vetted propaganda imagery and dumbed-down story narratives, but minimize anything that might reflect negatively on the White House and by extension, its heir apparent, Hillary Clinton.
LOOKS GOOD: Mosul’s stage-managed media campaign – run by the Pentagon.
While the US, UK and France routinely bullhorn the Syrian government and Russian forces for trying to retake terrorist-held East Aleppo in Syria – labelling their anti-terror operation as “war crimes,” – the US is touting their seemingly identical directive in Mosul as a ‘liberation operation’ and calling any collateral damage as necessary to achieve their objectives.
Today, reports indicate that a “surgical” US airstrike struck a girls’ school in Mosul last Friday, killing 60 people and injuring 200 more including many children.
In the past, Obama Administration officials have even said they consider claims of ‘collateral damage’ as “irrelevant.” The US double stand on this issue seems to be a permanent problem driven by Washington’s institutional ignorance on this issue.
Robert Parry of Consortium News explains, “And we’ve seen similar mainstream media treatment of other U.S.-organized assaults on urban areas, such as the devastation of the Iraqi city, Fallujah, in 2004 when U.S. Marines routed Iraqi insurgents from the city while leveling or severely damaging most of the city’s buildings and killing hundreds of civilians. But those victims were portrayed in the Western press as ‘human shields,’ shifting the blame for their deaths onto the Iraqi insurgents.”
Islamic State has reportedly massacred scores of people as the coalition’s operation to retake the Mosul continues, the UN said. French President Francois Hollande urged the anti-IS forces to prepare for the aftermath of the jihadists’ defeat in Iraq.
According to preliminary information from sources in Iraq, 50 ex-police officers were executed in a building outside Mosul on Sunday, Rupert Colville, UN human rights spokesman, said.
On Thursday, Iraqi security forces found the bodies of 70 civilians in the village of Tuloul Naser south of Mosul, he added.
“The bodies had bullet wounds, but it isn’t known for sure at this point who was responsible for the killings,” Colville as cited by Reuters.
In the village of Safina, about 45km south of Mosul, 15 civilians were murdered, with their bodies thrown into the river to intimidate the population, he said.
SEE ALSO: Turkey takes part in advance on Mosul despite Iraq opposition
Also in Safina, six men were tied to a vehicle and dragged around, the UN spokesman said, adding that the victims were apparently relatives of a tribal leader who fought against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
IS terrorists reportedly killed three women and three girls, also wounding four other children, outside of the village of Rufeila.
During the forced relocation from the village, “the victims were lagging behind because one of the children had a disability. She was apparently amongst those shot and killed,” Colville said.
According to the spokesman, the information came from a “mix of sources” – both civilian and government – in northern Iraq, which the UN had used in the past.
“Some of them we can’t even come close to identifying, or even the locations, for protection reasons, particularly for those in areas that are still held by ISIS, and in other cases there’s a major battle (going on),” he said…
READ MORE IRAQ NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Iraq Files
SUPPORT OUR WORK – SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV
