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"We're doing very well in Iraq," Trump said at a reception for all US senators and their spouses in the White House East Room, adding he'd just ended a long phone call with Defense Secretary James Mattis before appearing at the event.

Trump added that "our soldiers are fighting like never before" in Iraq, and praised what he characterized as a positive trajectory in the country.

During the Iraq War, which began in 2003, US troops engaged in extended fighting across the country, battling an insurgency and later sectarian violence to secure areas in key cities and regions.

Though troops currently in Iraq aren't officially carrying out a combat mission, they do face danger and limited engagement with enemy forces, particularly as they move closer to the front lines in Mosul, the northern city that Iraqi forces are working to liberate from ISIS.

The President didn't acknowledge those deaths in his remarks, instead praising the work of the US military in Iraq.

"The results are very, very good," Trump said. "I just wanted to let everyone know."

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Trump: US troops fighting 'like never before' in Iraq ...

The U.S. military is sending an additional two companies of soldiers to Iraq to help Iraqi troops fighting to retake Mosul from ISIS, defense officials confirmed to ABC News.

Two companies of soldiers is equal to between 200 to 300 soldiers.

Additional members of the 82nd Airborne Division's second combat brigade are deploying to Iraq on a temporary mission to provide additional "advise and assist" support to Iraqi forces, Colonel Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve told ABC News.

"This is not a new capability," said Scrocca. "It provides more advise and assist assets to our Iraqi partners."

This unit of the 82nd Airborne already has 1,700 soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait helping with the advise and assist mission for Iraqi troops.

"The number of soldiers does not equate to the remainder of the brigade as had previously been surmised," said Scrocca. News reports in recent weeks had said the Pentagon was considering sending possibly as many as 1,000 additional members from the brigade for the advise and assist mission in Mosul.

The authorized troop cap for Iraq is 5,262 though the real number is probably 6,000 with the presence of additional troops on temporary assignment. These new troops wont count towards the cap because theyre on temporary assignment.

In mid-February the Iraqi military began a final push to retake western Mosul from ISIS after having seized the eastern half of the city in a fierce 100-day battle that began in October. Iraqi troops are now facing stiff resistance from ISIS fighters as they fight through the tight quarters of the older western half of the city.

In Syria there are currently about 900 U.S. forces advising and assisting the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighting ISIS, even though the authorized troop level is 503.

The higher number is due to the recent addition of a Marine artillery unit helping with the SDF's offensive outside of Raqqa and a small complement of Army Rangers sent to the city of Manbij to ensure that Turkish-backed forces and SDF forces do not fight each other.

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200 more US troops headed to Iraq to advise and assist ...

The Pentagon on Friday acknowledged that the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria carried out an airstrike in a western Mosul neighborhood and that it is looking into reports that the bombing left more than 100 civilians dead.

We are aware of reports on airstrikes in Mosul resulting in civilian casualties, Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement to Fox News. The Coalition conducted several strikes near Mosul and [coalition forces are] looking in to these reports.The Department of Defense takes all reports of civilian casualties very seriously and assesses all incidents as thoroughly as possible.

The suspected civilian body count underscores the problems that Iraqi troops face in their weeks-long campaign to drive out the Sunni militant group from the densely urban part of Iraq's second-largest city.

Residents of the neighborhood where the airstrike occurred, known as Mosul Jidideh, told a team of Associated Press reporters at the scene that scores of residents are believed to have been killed by a pair of airstrikes that hit a cluster of homes in the area earlier this month.

"Over 137 people were inside. The entire neighborhood was fleeing because of missiles that hit, so people were taking refuge here," said Ahmed Ahmed, one of the residents of the neighborhood.

One airstrike hit the residential area on March 13, followed by a second strike four days later, the residents said.

The Department of Defense takes all reports of civilian casualties very seriously and assesses all incidents as thoroughly as possible.

- Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman

Faced with their most difficult fight yet against ISIS, Iraqi and the U.S.-led coalition forces have increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery to clear and hold territory in Iraq.

As of March 14 of this year, the U.S. alone has carried out over 7,700 airstrikes in Iraq-- many centered around the ISIS stronghold in Mosul while coalition forces have conducted an additional 3,634 airstrikes in the war-plagued Middle Eastern nation. The military intervention against ISIS dubbed Operation Inherent Resolve has involved almost 19,000 airstrikes in Syria and Iraq since 2014.

The Pentagons announcement on Friday comes two days after it reported it was investigating claims that a U.S. military airstrike recently hit a school in northern Syria and allegedly killed dozens of civilians. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said that at least 33 bodies were pulled from the rubble at the school, which had housed at least 50 families fleeing violence elsewhere in the war-torn nation.

Dozens of civilians were also purportedly killed last week when a strike on an al-Qaida target blasted a prayer hall in the town of Jinah, in Syrias Aleppo province. While the Pentagon, which opened an investigation into the bombing, said that numerous al-Qaida fighters were killed in the strike, local residents claim the dead were civilians who had gathered for a religious class.

The Pentagon, which has yet to release casualty figures from last month's fighting, has acknowledged 220 civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since its campaign against ISIS began in 2014. Independent monitoring groups, such as the London-based Airwars, put the casualty figures much higher, at just over 2,700 killed by coalition strikes since 2014.

The U.S. is conducting strikes on IS daily from bases in Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere in the region. U.S. military commanders have also raised the prospect of sending additional forces into the region to be ready to assist in accelerating the fight in either Syria or Iraq.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Resident of Mosul Jadida retrieve bodies from the rubble following the coalition airstrikes. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP

Iraqi military leaders have halted their push to recapture west Mosul from Islamic State as international outrage grew over the civilian toll from airstrikes that killed at least 150 people in a single district of the city.

The attack on the Mosul Jadida neighbourhood is thought to have been one of the deadliest bombing raids for civilians since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Rescuers were still pulling bodies from the rubble on Saturday, more than a week after the bombs landed, when the US-led coalition confirmed that its aircraft had targeted Isis fighters in the area.

They carried out the attack on 17 March at the request of the Iraqi security forces, and have now launched a formal investigation into reports of civilian casualties, the coalition said.

British planes were among those operating in western Mosul at the time. Asked if they could have been involved in the airstrikes, a spokesman did not rule out the possibility of British involvement, saying: We are aware of reports [of civilian casualties] and will support the coalition investigation.

There had been no reports of a UK role in any civilian casualties in more than two years of fighting Isis, he added. We have not seen evidence that we have been responsible for civilian casualties so far. Through our rigorous targeting processes we will continue to seek to minimise the risk of civilian casualties, but that risk can never be removed entirely.

A UK report on the 17 March fighting, which was issued just a couple of days later, described very challenging conditions with heavy cloud. Tornado jets were sent to support Iraqi troops advancing inside western Mosul in intense urban fighting, where crews had to engage targets perilously close to the Iraqi troops whom they were assisting. They used Paveway guided missiles to hit five targets. The coalition said in a separate statement it had carried out four airstrikes aimed at three Isis tactical units. They destroyed more than 50 vehicles and 25 fighting positions.

The deaths have intensified concerns over up to 400,000 Mosul residents who are still packed into the crowded western half of the city, as Iraqi security forces backed by foreign air power advance on Isiss last major stronghold in the country.

Civil defence workers say they have pulled more than 140 bodies from the ruins of three buildings in Mosul Jadida and believe that dozens more remain under the rubble of one building, a large home with a once cavernous basement, in which up to 100 people had hidden last Friday morning.

Local people at the site told the Observer that the enormous damage inflicted on the homes and much of the surrounding area had been caused by airstrikes, which battered the neighbourhood in the middle of a pitched battle with Isis members, who were under attack from Iraqi forces.

The UNs humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, said: We are stunned by this terrible loss of life.

Chris Woods, director of monitoring group Airwars, said: The Jadida incident alone is the worst toll of a single [airstrike] incident that I can recall in decades. The coalitions argument that it doesnt target noncombatants risks being devalued when so many civilians are being killed in west Mosul.

He warned that the deaths, and other recent attacks in Syria that have claimed dozens of lives, risked turning public sentiment against the coalition. We have until recently always credited the coalition for taking care to avoid civilian casualties, compared with the Russians. But since the last months of 2016 you have seen this steep climb in civilian casualties and public sentiment has turned very sharply against the US-led coalition.

As the scale of the disaster became apparent, Iraqi military sources confirmed that they had been ordered not to launch new operations.

The Australian defence force issued a statement on Sunday in response to questions about its involvement. While there are no specific allegations against Australian aircraft, Australia will fully support the coalition-led (Operation Inherent Resolve) investigation into these allegations.

Mosul Jadida residents said three homes had taken direct hits from airstrikes and others had been damaged by debris and shelling. They started in the morning and they continued till around 2pm, said Mustafa Yeheya. There were Isis on the roof of several of the buildings and they were in the streets fighting. But the strange thing is that the house they were hiding in, their military room, was not even hit. None of their bases was.

Journalists were banned from entering west Mosul on Saturday and Iraqi commanders could not be contacted. Iraqi and US forces have previously said that Isis deliberately blended among the civilian population and, in some cases, fighters were posted near civilian targets in a bid to increase casualties and slow the offensive against them.

A United States Central Command statement said: Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, but the coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of Isiss inhuman tactics terrorising civilians, using human shields and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighbourhoods.

Muawiya Ismael, who said he had lost six members of his clan in the attack, said: It is true that this was a battle zone and that Isis were here. They had about 15 people in the area, and they were in high positions. But they did not have heavy guns. Nothing that should justify an attack of this scale. It was not in proportion to the threat and soldiers could have fixed this.

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Iraq suspends Mosul offensive after coalition airstrike ...

An Iraqi rescue worker gestures toward bodies wrapped in plastic in the al-Jadida district of Mosul on Sunday, following airstrikes in which civilians were reportedly killed during an ongoing offensive against ISIS.

Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images

Despite his initial support for the Iraq war, Donald Trump ascended to office with a vow to untangle America from Middle Eastern conflicts. But he also ran as a nationalist, promising to steal Iraqs oil, torture alleged terrorists, bomb the shit out of ISIS, and loosen the rules of military engagement. Its too early to know exactly how the Trump administrations policies in the region will play out, but the U.S. has continued heavily bombing Iraq and Syria with catastrophic consequences.

Isaac Chotiner is a Slate staff writer.

According to the nonprofit group Airwars, which tracks civilian casualties, Almost 1,000 civilian non-combatant deaths have already been alleged from coalition actions across Iraq and Syria in Marcha record claim. Three particularly deadly air attacks, one in Syria and two in Iraq, including an especially deadly assault on Mosul, are responsible for much of the toll.

To discuss why civilian casualties are increasing, I spoke with Samuel Oakford, a New Yorkbased investigative reporter at Airwars and a former U.N. correspondent at Vice News. During the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed how his group reports on civilian casualties, Russian intervention in Syria, and why military planning must take the lives of innocent people into account.

Isaac Chotiner: When did your organization first notice an increase in civilian casualties?

Samuel Oakford: There were some marked increases in the last months of the Obama administration, so basically the fall of 2016. You really started seeing the number rise, both in Iraq and Syria. Those figures have continued to rise even higher during the first few months of the Trump administration. Obviously most of these casualties are tied to ongoing campaigns in Mosul and elsewhere.

Is the increase coming from the number of airstrikes or the deadliness of them?

Definitely the strikes appear to be more deadly. Were seeing larger numbers of civilians killed in individual strikes. That could be a product of bombing in heavily urbanized areas, so in Mosul thats obviously true. Some have pointed out that higher numbers of civilian casualties were inevitable in western Mosul, but Im not sure how much comfort that gives to the civilians there. I do think that the qualitative changes to the strikes are probably a product both of where theyre taking place, but also maybe some changes to the way that theyre being authorized. Thats the big question herewhether there have been changes to the rules of engagement. The Pentagon denies that, but they also say that there have been changes to who can authorize strikes, so it becomes a bit of a semantic conversation.

How does your organization tally civilian casualties?

Its a good question. In a lot of Iraq and Syria, especially in ISIS-controlled areas, you cant go in and do a post-strike assessment after bombs are dropped. Even in places like Yemen, where the Saudis bombed, the U.N. is sometimes able to go and look at what happened, and try and see who died, and so forth. If youre bombing in Raqqa, though, its very difficult, or its impossible to go. We have to rely in those placesand this is the model overallof being an all source monitor. We take all sources and create a constellation of evidence, then do our best to see which strikes are the most likely to have taken place. You can often reasonably attribute them to one side or another.

For instance, in this recent strike in Mosul we have over 50 sources. Some are social media accounts. By and large the sources are local, so most people in the West are not looking at them. Social media is huge, so the way this war is being recorded is in a lot of cases online, and you have to know where to look. We have researchers that speak Arabic and researchers who focus on Iraq and Syria, and then we compare that to what we know about strikes in the area and we try to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.

Despite the heavy Iraqi casualties, some of the news reporting suggests that its the Iraqi military pushing hard for more strikes. Have you found that too?

Some of whats coming out is that Iraqi forces are suggesting that the U.S. is being too loose with rules of engagement. But previously, in east Mosul, my understanding was that in some cases, the Iraqis wanted the U.S. coalition to move faster. I think its a little bit all over the place, but they definitely want to take Mosul as quickly as possible. I dont think they want to kill everyone there, so theres a tension that exists.

I read that your group has started focusing more on coalition airstrikes and less on Russian airstrikes because of how many civilians the American-led mission has killed.

Basically, the Russian intervention started in September of 2015, and it got really, really awful within a few months, with thousands of alleged casualties. Only now is the coalition approaching the number of alleged casualties that can be attributed to the Russians.

We still have researchers who are just really, really amazing and still recording all of these reports on casualties from Russian strikes and putting them in our database. The next step is to vet them and that is the process I described for you. But we have had to pause on some stuff regarding Russia in order to do that sufficiently for the current coalition activities.

And the Russians are still very active, correct?

Russian strikes are still quite active. Theyre not as active as they were, but theyre still bombing regularly. And they have room to ramp up again, I think, is what I might say.

Do the civilians you hear from have a sense that they are under a different degree of siege than several months ago?

If youre under a hail of artillery fire, and coalition airstrikes, and also Iraqi airstrikes, I dont know one has time to parse the distinctions between various rules of engagement. Obviously theres a substantive change in your reality when youre running for your life, when youre sheltering, and when perhaps the place youre sheltering, which maybe ISIS directed you to, speaking hypothetically, has been obliterated in an airstrike. Its a reality that people are experiencing rather than empirically observing.

Has this job made you think differently about war?

We have countless pages of these firsthand accounts. People post things on Facebook, they post pictures of the people that are killed. Sometimes were able to reach out through our researchers in Iraq and Syria, or Im able to reach out to family members. I know for me, Im just speaking personally, having these images and talking to family members hasnt changed the way I look at war, but its made it a lot more difficult to look at war. In my experience doing this work, I know even more clearly how important it is that reporting happens in Iraq, where you meet with family members and talk with people that were witnesses and victims, and not just listen to the Pentagon and get an update on the rules of engagement.

There is clearly an intensifying campaign of late. There does seem to be a qualitative difference in the strikes as well. At a certain point, the coalition, the Iraqis, the government has to ask how many civilians will die in this operation. I just think thats the real question here, because by a lot of accounts the worst fighting in Mosul is only starting, which is kind of hard to believe. You really have to plan out military activities with an eye to civilians, and what that means for the future of countries and communities.

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Why Are So Many Civilians in Iraq and Syria Dying? - Slate Magazine