Alwaght- A recent bombing of dozens of civilian mourners in Iraq’s oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk has failed to attract much attention to its culprits, let alone lead to their accountability.
"Fifteen women were killed and another 50 wounded in a raid that targeted a Shiite place of worship at Daquq," local council chief Amir Huda Karam told AFP.
There is no information on who exactly carried out the alleged bombardment. However, reason leads observers to believe that the carnage is the doing of the US-led coalition which is supposed to be targeting ISIS militants as part of the operation against the terrorist group.
The carnage was clearly executed by a fighter jet. Since this aerial killing machine is not at the disposal of everyone, not even terrorists in Iraq, the only reasonable answer to the question of who committed this massacre is that a member of the US-led coalition was responsible considering their history in mistakenly killing civilians while seeking out militants.
Russia was straightforward about this issue, accusing the coalition of committing war crimes in the Arab state.
"Judging by the eyewitness accounts, the mourning procession was mistaken for terrorists by the coalition aviation. Dozens of Iraqi civilians died, including women and children,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement released on Saturday.
He added that Russian reconnaissance had pinpointed two jets conducting airstrikes on Daquq, located 30 kilometers south of Kirkuk, stressing that there were no ISIS militants there.
USL-led coalition strikes on residential areas amount to war crimes as innocent civilians end up dead due to the bombardment of weddings, funerals, hospitals, police stations, and even humanitarian convoys.
According to Iraq Body Count, 118 civilians were killed by coalition airstrikes in 2014 and as much as 845 in 2015.
In Syria, the US-led coalition has also been responsible for civilian casualties.
The website Airwars which "maintains an extensive database of all known allegations in which civilians and friendly forces have been reported killed by the Coalition since August 2014" reports between 503 and 700 civilians killed by Coalition airstrikes in Syria as of April 2016.
On 3 August 2016, dozens of civilians were killed after an airstrike in the town of Qaim, not to mention several other similar if not deadlier incidents.
With a record of “mistakenly” killing civilians in Iraq and Syria, the US-led coalition seems the likeliest perpetrator of the latest airstrike that killed women and children at a Shiite place of worship. However, none of the member states have stepped up and claimed responsibility for the mishap.
The event surely must have been avoided at all costs, especially that such an incident is not the first of its kind. But since the damage has already been done, the least the responsible side could have done is assume responsibility and issue an apology for the carnage, for taking away the lives of these women. Till now, no one has done so, leading many to believe that the lives of innocent Iraqis, whom this coalition is supposed to protect, are taken lightly.
