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Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked militants are quickly moving to drum up outrage over a spike in civilian casualties said to have been caused by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, posting photos online of a destroyed medical center and homes reduced to rubble. "This is how Trump liberates Mosul, by killing its inhabitants," the caption reads.

During two years of fighting to push back IS, the U.S.-led coalition has faced little backlash over casualties, in part because civilian deaths have been seen as relatively low and there have been few cases of single strikes killing large numbers of people. In Iraq, even though sensitivities run deep over past American abuses of civilians, the country's prime minister and many Iraqis support the U.S. role in fighting the militants.

But anger over lives lost is becoming a significant issue as Iraqi troops backed by U.S. special forces and coalition airstrikes wade into more densely populated districts of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and U.S.-backed Syrian fighters battle closer to the IS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria. That has the potential to undercut victories against the militants and stoke resentments that play into their hands.

At least 300 civilians have been killed in the offensive against IS in the western half of Mosul since mid-February, according to the U.N. human rights office, including 140 killed in a single March 17 airstrike on a building. Dozens more were said to have been killed in another strike last weekend, according to Amnesty International, and by similar airstrikes in Syria in the past month.

Sharply higher toll

In Syria, as fighting around Raqqa intensified, civilian fatalities from coalition airstrikes rose to 198 in March including 32 children and 31 women compared with 56 in February, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents Syria's war. Over the course of the air campaign, from September 2014 through February, an average of 30 civilians were killed a month, according to the observatory.

FILE - Civil protection rescue teams work on the debris of a destroyed house to recover the body of people killed during fighting between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State militants on the western side of Mosul, Iraq, March 24, 2017.

The U.S. military is investigating what role the U.S. played in the March 17 airstrike in Mosul, and American and Iraqi officials have said militants may have deliberately gathered civilians there and planted explosives in the building. The blast left an entire residential block flattened.

Among those who lost loved ones, resentment appears to be building toward the U.S.-led coalition and the ground forces it supports.

"How could they have used this much artillery on civilian locations?" asked Bashar Abdullah, a resident of the neighborhood known as New Mosul, who lost more than a dozen family members in the March 17 attack. "Iraqi and American forces both assured us that it will be an easy battle. That's why people didn't leave their houses. They felt safe."

U.S. officials have said they are investigating other claims of casualties in Syria and Iraq.

IS fighters have overtly used civilians as human shields, including firing from homes where people are sheltering or forcing people to move alongside them as they withdraw. The group has imposed a reign of terror across territories it holds in Syria and Iraq, taking women as sex slaves, decapitating or shooting suspected opponents and destroying archaeological sites. Mass graves are unearthed nearly every day in former IS territory.

Now, the group is using the civilian deaths purportedly caused by U.S.-led airstrikes in its propaganda machine.

Today's 'Mongols'

Photos recently posted on militant websites showed the destruction at the Mosul Medical College with a caption describing the Americans as the "Mongols of the modern era" who kill and destroy under the pretext of liberation. A series of pictures showing destroyed homes carried the comment: "This is how Trump liberates Mosul, by killing its inhabitants under the rubble of houses bombed by American warplanes to claim victory. Who would dare say this is a war crime?"

FILE - Residents carry the body of a person killed during fights between Iraq security forces and Islamic State on the western side of Mosul, Iraq, March 24, 2017.

In Syria, IS and other extremist factions have pushed the line that the U.S. and Russia, which is backing President Bashar al-Assad's regime, are equal in their disregard for civilian lives.

U.S. "crimes are clear evidence of the 'murderous friendship' that America claims to have with the Syrian people, along with its claimed concern for their future and interests," said the Levant Liberation Committee, an al-Qaida-led insurgent alliance.

Some Syrian opposition factions allied with the U.S. have also criticized the strikes, describing them as potential war crimes.

An analysis by the Soufan Group consultancy warned that rumors and accusations of coalition atrocities "will certainly help shape popular opinion once Mosul and Raqqa are retaken, thus serving a purpose for the next phase of the Islamic State's existence."

Criticism has also come from Russian officials, whose military has been accused of killing civilians on a large scale in its air campaign in Syria, particularly during the offensive that recaptured eastern Aleppo from rebels late last year.

"I'm greatly surprised with such action of the U.S. military, which has all the necessary equipment and yet were unable to figure out for several hours that they weren't striking the designated targets," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, speaking at the U.N. Security Council about the March 17 strike.

Coalition won't 'back down'

Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, acknowledged the spike in civilian casualty reports could change the way the coalition is conducting the war. He said it was a "very valid" concern that loss of life and destruction could play into the hands of IS or cause some coalition members to waver.

"But the coalition is not going to back down when [the fight] gets hard or there's a lot of pressure," he said. "That's what ISIS wants."

In Syria, the deadliest recent strike occurred this month in a rebel-held area in the north. Opposition activists said a mosque was hit during evening prayers, killing about 40 people, mostly civilians, and wounding dozens of others. The U.S. said it struck an al-Qaida gathering across the street from the mosque, killing dozens of militants, adding they found no basis for reports that civilians were killed.

In Mosul, the scale of destruction wrought by increased artillery and airstrikes is immense in some areas.

Abdullah, the resident of New Mosul, buried 13 members of his family in a single day.

Standing in a field now being used as a graveyard, he said: "This was not a liberation. It was destruction."

Read more here:
Civilian Deaths in Iraq, Syria Undercut US Victories - Voice of America

As part of the OPEC deal, Iraq has cut its oil production by more than 300,000 bpd, and so far in March its average output stands at 4.464 million bpd, according to Iraqs state oil marketing company SOMO.

Iraqs compliance to OPECs cuts is 90 percent, SOMO director Falah al-Amiri said on Thursday, as reported by Reuters.

Earlier this month, Iraqs Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said the countrys compliance rate had reached 85 percent.

Under OPECs agreement, Iraq vowed to voluntarily cut its output from a 4.561-million-bpd reference production level in October 2016, to a production level of 4.351 million bpd between January and June, so the March production figure announced today is 113,000 bpd above that level.

Iraq, which has disputed OPECs secondary sources figures before it signed up to the deal, has been the one cartel member that has missed the targeted output by the most so far. In January and February, Iraq produced 4.476 million bpd and 4.414 million bpd, respectively, according to OPECs secondary sources.

Iraq self-reported output of 4.630 million bpd in January and 4.566 million bpd in February, but, as OPEC says in its press releases Direct communication is not the basis of calculating conformity of OPEC MCs production with the reference production of October 2016.

Iraq has been signaling that it is cutting output, but it has not managed to bring it down even close to the target it had agreed to.

Related:Saudi Aramco IPO Under Pressure, As 9/11 Lawsuits And Oil Prices Hit

Iraq, OPECs second biggest producer behind Saudi Arabia, is expected to have boosted compliance this month, as the overall cartel compliance rate is expected to hit a record 95 percent for March.

Still, Iraq has a lot of more work to do to meet its target, that is, if it is really playing along with the cuts. OPEC, for its part, is boasting the record compliance rate, but the cuts may not be enough to drain the global oversupply, and the cartel may have to extend the deal through the end of the year.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Iraq Signals It Is Improving Compliance With OPEC Cuts - OilPrice.com

Three refugees connected to a man who was convicted of kidnapping an American in Iraq, have been arrested after seeking citizenship. Jose Sepulveda (@josesepulvedatv) has more. Buzz60

In this image taken from insurgents video released on Tuesday Jan. 25, 2005 American Roy Hallums pleads for Arab rulers to intercede to spare his life. Hallums, 56, was seized Nov. 1 along with Robert Tarongoy of the Philippines during an armed assault on their compound in Baghdad's Mansour district in Iraq.(Photo: AP)

WASHINGTON Roy Hallums first clue that something was up came when the FBI texted him with a bit of bizarre news.

More than a dozen years after the Memphis resident was kidnapped and held captive for 311 days in Iraq, his harrowing ordeal has been linked to an immigration fraud case in Northern Virginia.

Two brothers and the sister-in-law of an Iraqi man convicted in Hallums kidnapping were arrested Tuesday and charged with hiding their connections to the captor. All three live in Fairfax County, Va., just outside of Washington, as legal permanent U.S. residents and have applied to become U.S. citizens.

Mines an old story, but then to have it come up again and have one of the guys living in Northern Virginia, that was a big surprise, Hallums said Thursday.

Adding to the intrigue: The fingerprints of one of the brothers, Yousif Al Mashhadani, had been found on a document discovered in the underground bunker where Hallums had been held. The document was recovered when U.S. troops raided the bunker and a remote farmhouse and freed Hallums and other captives in 2005.

Hallums was blindfolded and tied up for most of his captivity, so he said he doesnt know if he ever had any direct contact with Al Mashhadani.

The gang and the people that held me its all one family, he said. Im talking extended family, like dozens of people. At any one time in the house, there might be four people. There might be 20 people.

Hallums was taken captive by a group of armed men on Nov. 1, 2004, from the compound in Baghdad where he worked for a Saudi Arabian contractor supplying food to the Iraqi armed forces. He was repeatedly bound, blindfolded and beaten before he was rescued by Special Forces nearly a year later.

Three years after Hallums was freed, Al Mashhadani was admitted to the United States as a refugee, according to court documents. He applied for naturalization as a U.S. citizen in 2013. His fingerprints were taken in connection with his citizenship application, and thats when specialists discovered they matched the fingerprints on the document found in the bunker.

Al Mashhadanis brother Adil Hasan and Hasans wife, Enas Ibrahim, also moved to the United States from Iraq in 2008. None of the three disclosed their ties to Majid Al Mashhadani, the convicted kidnapper, when they filled out a family tree on various applications and forms during the immigration process, prosecutors said.

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Under questioning by the FBI, they later admitted withholding the information because they feared they would be denied permission to enter the United States, according to court documents. Each faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and deportation if convicted.

Hallums, who wrote a book about his captivity, said hes waiting to hear if prosecutors need him to testify in the case. A hearing is set for Friday.

The arrests have gotten national attention because they come amid the debate over the need for tougher background checks for people entering the U.S. and President Donald Trumps attempts to temporarily suspend immigration from six majority Muslim countries.

Asked whether the arrests show stricter vetting is needed, Hallums said, I dont want to get into the politics of it, but in my case, whoever was doing it, something went wrong.

The document bearing Al Mashhadanis fingerprints was recovered from the bunker in 2005, which meant it was in the possession of U.S. authorities for three years before he was given refugee status and allowed to enter the United States.

Whatever system they had for him didnt work, Hallums said. Thats pretty cut and dried.

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2oE0H2B

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Case of American kidnapped in Iraq reemerges - USA Today - USA TODAY

By Jeremy Courtney By Jeremy Courtney March 31 at 5:30 AM

To all my friends in London who are reeling after last weeks attack outside Parliament: I see you. I mourn with you. And I want you to know its OK to be afraid.

The day after the attack, your prime minister stood up in the House of Commons and said, We are not afraid. This slogan has since appeared on tube signs and billboards throughout the city and on Facebook profiles around the world.

And I get it. We are not afraid is a statement of defiance, a rallying cry in the face of our shared trauma and grief. It gives us something to hold on to after yet another horrifying attack in a world that was already scary as hell. I think its trying to say, We wont let the terrorists win.

But we are not afraid is the wrong way to respond to terror. Its not how we build a society in which love prevails over hate.

Ive spent more than a decade living in Iraq. I see what ISIS is capable of. I witness the devastation caused by extremism and by the fight against it. Im on the front lines and I walk past burned-out buildings and the bodies of recently killed ISIS fighters. I weep with families who are left in the dirt after fleeing their homes on foot and losing everything to violence.

A few days before the London attack, my team and I were servinginside west Mosul,bringing food to 12,000 besieged people as airstrikes and mortars rained down on three sides, targeting ISIS militants just streets away from us.

I was afraid. In fact, over the past 10years of our team working in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, Im regularly afraid. Because fear in the face of terror is normal, whether youre on the streets of Mosul or the streets of London.

The problem is when weshamefear, when we drive it underground, when we normalize bravado and idealize the absence of fear as if simply saying we are not afraid makes it so. How can you not be afraid of ISIS? How can you not be afraid of terrorism if youve lived through 9/11 or the attacks in London, Paris, Nice, San Bernardino, Baghdad or a hundred other places that have been torn apart by violence?

Fear is not our problem. Our problem is alienating those who feel afraid, making it harder for us to have healthy conversations about our fears. Fear driven underground metastasizes into bigotry and hatred and distrust of the other. It gives rise to the worst forms of populism the kinds that pit us against them and consolidate blame onto a common enemy who may not look like us or pray the way we do or see the world exactly as we see it.

Terror is meant to traumatize and divide us. So the messages around which we choose to unify in the midst of our trauma are just as important as whether we unify at all. Saying we are not afraid is a shortcut to a false unity well pay a price for it in the end. Its a short-term fix that causes long-term damage, because it keeps us from going to the core of what separates us from each other. This bravado prevents us from building a more robust society that is strong enough to not only withstand the next terror attack, but to actually unmake violence itself to love terrorism out of existence.

Instead of telling people we are not afraid, our leaders should tell us the truth: You may be afraid. These are scary times. The world is scary as hell, and there may be more to come. But we will love anyway.

Because lets be honest: Even if we could all keep a stiff upper lip and steel our hearts against fear, what would that accomplish for the world? To say no fear is to live by what werenot.Thats not leadership. Thats just reaction.

Real courage is not found in the denial of fear. Its when we choose to face our fear, take one step toward it, and love anyway.

Love means listening to the fears of those who are traumatized by terror, who are fearful of the next attack instead of pretending these fears dont exist or that they somehow make us weak. It means learning to have healthy conversations about what or who we fear and askinghow can we help?

Love means listening to the fears of those who have become targets for reprisal or marginalization as a direct result of the fear most of us pretend not to have. The hibaji woman who cannot walk down the street without drawing hostile stares, the refugee with the Middle Eastern-sounding name who wonders if he is truly welcome in his new home love takes one step toward the other.

Pretending youre not afraid might get you through today or the next day. But if you actually want to change the world you live in if you want to walk through your fear, not just deny it preemptive love is the only way.

This kind of love refuses to pit us against them. It refuses to put our well-being over and against the well-being of others. It sayswe belong to each other fears and all.

Violence unmakes the world and make no mistake: that is a scary thing. But preemptive love unmakes violence. And thats the best way to defeat terror.

Jeremy Courtneyis CEO of Preemptive Love Coalition, working on the frontlines in Iraq and Syria to protect the persecuted and displaced from becoming refugees, by delivering aid inside conflict zones and providing small-business empowerment. He is author of Preemptive Love: Pursuing Peace One Heart at a Time.

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Excerpt from:
I've worked more than a decade in Iraq. 'We are not afraid' is the wrong response to terror attacks. - Washington Post

New York Times

Trump's Iraq 'Game Plan' New York Times How easy it is for him to send our soldiers into harm's way, and how untouched President Trump and his family will be as we continue a war in Iraq that should have ended years ago. I was hoping that Gen. Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, would be an ...

Continued here:
Trump's Iraq 'Game Plan' - New York Times