4 die in IED blast in Kirkuk
(IraqiNews.com) Kirkuk – Thirteen civilians were either killed or wounded in an IED, while fleeing from the Islamic State-held regions, southwest of Kirkuk, Al Sumaria News reported on Tuesday.
Al Sumaria News stated, “The families targeted by the bomb at Riyadh-Rashad road were leaving their residences at Hawijah (55 km from southwest Kirkuk),” pointing out that, “Four persons were killed and nine others were wounded due to the explosion.”
“IED attacks are taking place on a daily basis, to target civilians while escaping from the ISIS-held areas,” Al Sumaria added.
Hawijah, al-Rashad, al-Riyadh, al-Abbasi and Zab and other areas southwest of Kirkuk were under the ISIS control since June 2014, while more than 150,000 civilians fled to Kirkuk since then.
The United Nations estimated that more than 3 million Iraqis have been internally displaced since the start of the US-led coalition and Iraqi government’s military conflict with the self-proclaimed Islamic State group in 2014.
Iraqi forces, US forces and Shia militias are currently carrying out a major battle to free the city of Mosul from the ISIS hold, claiming remarkable victories against the group since the start of operations.
ISIS evacuates casualties from Mosul hospitals
(IraqiNews.com) Mosul – The self-proclaimed Islamic State began Tuesday to evacuate its wounded militants from hospitals of Mosul, taking them to an unknown destination, local sources told Alsumaria news.
“Buses carried tens of wounded Daesh fighters overnight from hospitals to unknown destinations,” said the source who asked to remain anonymous. The source speculated that those destinations could either be inside Mosul or on the way of the Syrian city of Raqqa, a major IS stronghold.
The extremist, militant group also carried medical equipment along with its injured personnel, according to the source who said that the group was possibly seeking to set up field hospitals at its strongholds.
An Iraqi government security operation, codenamed “We Are Coming, Nineveh”, has entered its 16th day in a row to liberate the governorate from IS. On Monday, forces advanced to the left coast of Mosul on three axes, with IS coincidently ceasing to refer to Mosul as the capital of its proclaimed “Caliphate” and closing down its secret prisons and largest camps in Ghazlani.
More civilians forced into Mosul as human shields
[AlArabiya] The UN said Tuesday it had received more reports of ISIS militants forcing thousands of civilians into Mosul, possibly to be used as human shields against advancing Iraqi troops.
The militants also reportedly killed another 40 former Iraqi Security Force (ISF) members before dumping their bodies in the river, UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
The rights office has listed numerous ISIS atrocities, including tens of thousands of forced relocations and hundreds of executions, allegedly committed in and around Mosul since a government operation to retake the northern city began last month.
Some of the allegations have been termed “preliminary” and needing more investigation.
Asked about the credibility of the fresh reports, Shamdasani said: “This is raw information. It hasn’t gone through our usual verification processes,” while stressing that rights office sources were “reliable.”
In the early hours of Monday, ISIS fighters “brought dozens of long trucks and mini-buses to Hamam al-Alil City, south of Mosul, in an attempt to forcibly transfer some 25,000 civilians towards locations in and around Mosul,” the rights office said in a statement.
Most of the vehicles were prevented from reaching Mosul because of coalition aircraft patrolling the area, the statement added.
Shamdasani said there was “a pattern” of the militants surrounding their offices and bases with civilians.
“That seems to support the assertion that they are planning to use these people as human shields as well as to make sure that the area is heavily populated with civilians to frustrate a military operation against them,” she added.
Separately on Saturday, 40 ex-ISF officers “were killed and their bodies thrown in the Tigris River,” after being kidnapped by ISIS earlier in the week, Shamdasani further said.
That brings to 296 the number of former Iraqi security officers killed by ISIS since last Tuesday, according to the UN.
The UN made its statements after Iraq’s special forces entered the outskirts of Mosul on Tuesday and were advancing toward its more urban center despite fierce resistance by ISIS militants who hold the city, an Iraqi general said.