Post-surge airstrikes soar; some rights groups worry
WASHINGTON – The U.S. military conducted more than five times as many airstrikes in Iraq last year as it did in 2006, targeting al-Qaida safe houses, insurgent bomb-making facilities and weapons stockpiles in an aggressive strategy aimed at supporting the U.S. troop increase by overwhelming enemies with air power.
Top commanders said better intelligence-gathering allows them to identify and hit extremist strongholds with bombs and missiles from above and predicted that extensive airstrikes will continue this year as the United States seeks to flush insurgents out of havens in and around Baghdad and to the north in Diyala province.
The U.S.-led coalition dropped 1,447 bombs over Iraq last year, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006.
“The core reason why we see the increase in strikes is the offensive strategy taken by General (David) Petraeus,” said Air Force Col. Gary Crowder, commander of the 609th Combined Air Operations Center in Southwest Asia. Because the United States has sent more troops into areas rife with insurgent activity, he said, “we integrated more airstrikes into those operations.”
The greater reliance on air power has raised concerns from human rights groups, which say that 500-pound and 2,000-pound munitions threaten civilians, especially when dropped in residential neighborhoods where insurgents mix with the population. The military stresses that the precision attacks are designed to minimize civilian casualties – particularly as Petraeus’ counterinsurgency strategy emphasizes moving more troops into local communities and winning over the Iraqi population, but rights groups say bombings carry an especially high risk.
“The Iraqi population remains at risk of harm during these operations,” said Eliane Nabaa, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq. “The presence of individual combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the civilian character of an area.”
UNAMI estimates that more than 200 civilian deaths resulted from U.S. airstrikes in Iraq from the beginning of April to the end of last year, when U.S. forces began to significantly increase the strikes to coordinate with the expansion of ground troops.
The strategy was evident last week, as U.S. forces launched airstrikes across Iraq as part of Operation Phantom Phoenix. On Thursday morning in Arab Jabour, southeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military dropped 38 bombs with 40,000 pounds of explosives in 10 minutes, one of the largest strikes since the 2003 invasion.