U.S.-led Coalition Bombs ISIS Cash Storehouse in Mosul, Iraq

By Cheri Cheng - 12 Jan '16 16:24PM
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The U.S.-led coalition created to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has dropped bombs in central Mosul, Iraq on Sunday.

The bombs targeted a storehouse believed to have contained large amounts of cash that ISIS, another term for the terrorist group, would have used to pay its militants, two U.S. defense officials revealed to CNN.

One of the officials stated that "millions" were destroyed. They could not, however, specify what the currency was although some outlets are reporting that the total was upwards of millions of dollars. The officials added that the coalition plans on carrying out more attacks on financial sites.

The airstrike, which included two 2,000-pound bombs, was not a typical attack since the risk of injury to civilians is generally considered to be high in the city, which has been under ISIS control since 2014. However, the bombing falls in line with the coalition's decision to expand its targets. A few weeks ago, U.S. planes hit ISIS oil trucks.

In this specific attack, officials had reportedly watched the building for a few days in order to determine when would be the best time to drop the bombs. They decided that bombing the site at dawn would lead to the lowest amount of casualties, if any.

The coalition reportedly factored in the possibility of civilian death and had set a max limit of 50. The initial report stated that maybe five to seven people died in the bombing.

The officials did not reveal how they learned that ISIS was using the building as a "cash collection and distribution point."

Over the past few weeks, the U.S. has stated that it would be assessing each target individually. For targets that are difficult to strike but are particularly important to ISIS, the U.S. stated that it might still carry out bombs despite risk of civilian causalities.

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