MOSUL, IRAQ - The US-led coalition bombing ISIL positions in Iraq has admitted carrying out air raids at a location in west Mosul where scores of civilians were reportedly killed.

The acknowledgement on Saturday came after the United Nations said it was "stunned" by the reported deaths of civilians in suspected coalition air raids in Mosul's ISIL-held al-Jadida district on March 17.

"An initial review of strike data ... indicates that the coalition struck (ISIL) fighters and equipment, March 17, in west Mosul at the location corresponding to allegations of civilian casualties," the US military's Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement on Saturday.

The coalition said that it had struck the area at the request of the Iraqi government and it had opened an investigation.

Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid , reporting from Erbil in northern Iraq, said it took about a week for the coalition to acknowledge the air raids.

"The response came after intense pressure here in Iraq, probably popular pressure more than government pressure," she said.

"About 200 people are thought to have died in that strike alone," our correspondent added. "These reports of a high toll of civilian casualties were first given by the civilians who actually managed to get out of western Mosul."

Iraqi officials and witnesses say that air raids in west Mosul have killed hundreds of people in recent days, but the exact number of victims could not be independently confirmed.

Bassma Bassim, the head of the Mosul District Council, said "more than 500" civilians were killed by air raids over the past week alone.

Story Date: March 26, 2017