Baghdad- The US-led military coalition
on Saturday said its forces destroyed a building in the main
medical complex of western Mosul, suspected to house an Islamic
State command center.
The militant group disputed the assertion, saying in an
online statement that Friday's strike killed 18 people, mostly
women and children, and wounded 47.
Independent media have no access to western Mosul or other
areas under Islamic State control in Iraq and Syria.
The militants are essentially under siege in western Mosul,
along with an estimated 650 000 civilians, after US-backed
forces surrounding the city dislodged them from the east in the
first phase of an offensive that concluded last month.
The coalition accused Islamic State of using the five-story
building as a military command and control facility.
"The coalition was able to determine through intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance efforts that ISIS did not use
the building for any medical purposes and that civilians were no
longer accessing the site," a coalition statement said, using an
acronym for Islamic State.
The strike followed reports that the militants are dug in
among civilians on the western side of Mosul and storing weapons
in hospitals, schools, mosques and churches as a tactic to avoid
targeting.
The offensive to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul, its last
major city stronghold in Iraq, started in October. The hardline
Sunni group declared in 2014 a self-styled caliphate that also
spans parts of Syria.