Baghdad: Iraq’s prime minister said on Saturday he has ordered the army to stop shelling populated areas held by militants in order to spare the lives of “innocent victims” as the armed forces struggle to retake cities and towns seized by the ISIS group this summer.“I issued this order two days ago because we do not want to see more innocent victims falling in the places and provinces controlled by ISIS."
He accused the militants of using civilians as a human shield to stop the advance of Iraqi security forces.
“We will continue to chase them (ISIS fighters) and we know that they are hiding behind the civilians,” he added.
The United Nations envoy to Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, who was present at the conference, welcomed Haider Al Abadi’s commitment to protect civilians.
| Saving civilians is good as long as they're innocents and not camp-followers. But the best way to save civilians is to kill the bad guys as quickly and completely as possible. |