'Bodies of murdered Iraqis lay in streets' after ISIL shooting, an apparent bid to prevent civilians fleeing, UN says.

Fighters from the ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS) group have killed more than 160 people in one day last week to prevent them from fleeing western Mosul, according to the United Nations.

The agency on Tuesday accused ISIL of carrying out the attack in the group's last stronghold, where a coalition of troops is working to flush out the fighters.

"The brutality of Daesh [ISIL] and other terrorist groups seemingly knows no bounds," said Zeid bin Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN's human rights chief.

"Yesterday, my staff reported to me that bodies of murdered Iraqi men, women and children still lay on the streets of the al-Shira neighbourhood of western Mosul, after at least 163 people were shot and killed by Daesh to prevent them from fleeing."

Hussein made the comments in his opening address to the UN Human Rights Council.

His spokesman, Rupert Colville, told the AFP news agency that the killings were believed to have taken place on June 1.

In late May, Iraqi forces launched a broad assault on parts of Mosul, closing in on the remaining pockets of territory held by ISIL.

Aid groups had expressed their concerns over the safety of hundreds of thousands of civilians at risk of being caught in the crossfire.

On Monday, UNICEF warned that 100,000 children were still in ISIL-held areas, living under extremely dangerous conditions.

Peter Hawkins, UNICEF's representative in Iraq, said the agency is receiving "alarming reports" of civilians being killed, including children, with some caught in the crossfire while trying to flee.

Separately, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday that at least 26 bodies of "blindfolded and handcuffed" men were found in government-controlled areas and around the city since the operation started.

READ MORE: UN envoy: Liberation of Mosul from ISIL is 'imminent'

Local armed forces told foreign journalists that 15 men were extrajudicially killed by government forces who were holding them on suspicion of being affiliated with ISIL, the rights group said.

HRW said that in the remaining cases reported by local and international sources, the sites of the apparent executions - all in government-held territory - raise concerns about government responsibility for the killings.

Last month, Stephen O'Brien, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, said the organisation had "deep concern" for hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped behind ISIL lines.

"Although the UN is not present in the areas where fighting is occurring, we have received very disturbing reports of families being shut inside booby-trapped homes and of children being deliberately targeted by snipers," O'Brien said.

ISIL overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air raids have since regained much of the territory they lost to the group.

Iraqi forces launched a major operation to retake Mosul in October last year, fighting their way to the city and retaking its eastern side before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely populated west.

The eastern half of Mosul was declared liberated in January and the push for the city's western section, separated from the east by the Tigris River, began the following month.

Almost 10,000 people fled from Mosul's northwest and the Old City every day last week, according to UN estimates.

More than 750,000 people have been displaced from the city since October. </s> Mosul (IraqiNews.com) A mass grave with the remains of at least 60 Iraqi civilians was found in the former Islamic State bastion, Mosul, a police officer was quoted saying on Wednesday.

Cap. Amir Watheq, from Nineveh police force, told BasNews website that security forces found the grave at Hammam al-Alil in southern Mosul, adding that most of the remains belonged to women who attempted to flee the area during the military campaign to retake the region.

As Iraqi troops recaptured areas held by Islamic State militants since 2014, they have regularly run into mass graves of civilians and security agents executed by the militants for fleeing the group’s havens or collaborating with security forces.

Iraq’s war against the Islamic State displaced millions of civilians both inside and outside the country, and left thousands dead, according to government and United Nations figures. In 2017 alone, violence left more than 3000 dead and more than 4000 wounded.

Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State last December, ending a three-year war to bring down the group’s self-styled “caliphate” declared from Nineveh’s Mosul in 2014. Security continues to comb recaptured areas for remnant cells as a number of attacks against civilians and security grew fears of their resurgence. </s> Those who have been executed included civilians who have refused to comply with the relocation orders and 190 former Iraqi Security Forces officers.

Islamic State group fighters slaughtered at least 232 people in and around Mosul this week as Iraqi troops advanced on the city, the U.N. rights office said Friday.

"Last Wednesday, 232 civilians were reportedly shot to death. Of these there were 190 former Iraqi Security Forces officers," rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

"These reports have been corroborated to the extent possible," she added, stressing that the number of people killed in recent days could be higher.

Ms. Shamdasani said the execution-style killings came as IS was pushing forward with its strategy of forcing people living near the northern Iraqi city into Mosul, the group's last bastion in Iraq.

The rights office has said the jihadists aim to use these people as "human shields" in the ensuing battle for Mosul against US-backed elite Iraqi troops.

"ISIL has been forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes in some districts around Mosul," Ms. Shamdasani said .

Those who have been executed included civilians who have refused to comply with the relocation orders and those who previously worked for the government security services. </s> At least 1,970 were killed, executed, or found dead; and 194 more were wounded in recent violence. During March, at least 826 people were killed or found dead, and 286 were wounded. The higher fatalities figure is mostly due to the discovery of hundreds of corpses in the rubble of Mosul.

The analysis is as follows: At least 222 civilians, 277 security personnel, 458 militants, 49 PKK guerrillas, and one Turkish soldier were killed or found dead. Iraq also executed 13 people. Of these fatalities 1,444 were found in mass graves or extracted from the rubble of Mosul, leaving 526 people killed during the month of April. Security operations launched by Iraqi forces on Islamic State targets near the border in Syria accounted for 37 of the deaths. Of course, the deaths of the Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K.) guerrillas and the Turkish soldier are from that conflict spilling over the border from Turkey.

At least 138 civilians, 50 security personnel, three militants, and three Turkish soldiers were wounded. Also, hundreds were sickened by water possibly tainted by unburied corpses finding their way into rivers in the Mosul region.

At least four people were killed, and three were wounded in recent violence:

Two people were killed in Dibs when leftover explosives were detonated.

A bomb at a shop in Baquba killed the owner.

An off-duty border guard died in a landmine explosion in Choman near the Iranian border.

In other news: The U.S.-led Coalition fighting the Islamic State militants deactivated the Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command, which oversaw ground operations in Iraq and Syria. Although its authority was transferred to the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, the closure represents the end of ground operations.
• Ten Foreign ISIS Wives Given Death Sentences; 10 Others Killed in Iraq – April 29th, 2018
• Five Foreign Women Condemned to Death in Iraqi Court; Four Killed in Iraq – April 26th, 2018 </s> Islamic State militants have allegedly executed at least 284 men and boys in the Iraqi city of Mosul and nearby villages. Jihadists, who had used them as human shields, dumped the victims’ bodies in a mass grave, according to a report.

The victims, children among them, were all shot dead on Thursday and Friday, an Iraqi intelligence source, who asked to remain anonymous, told CNN.

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) seized Mosul in June of 2014, when it was Iraq’s second-largest city. The terrorist group’s leader then turned it into a major military stronghold, and it is believed that between 4,000 and 8,000 IS militants are currently entrenched there, according to Reuters. An estimated 1.5 million people remain in the city.

On Friday, Islamic State militants took some 550 families from the villages around Mosul, holding them as human shields close to jihadist positions, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights office said. Citing “corroborated information,” she said the office was also investigating reports that they had killed 40 civilians in one village, Reuters reported.

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The battle for Mosul, the jihadists’ last major stronghold in Iraq, began on Sunday, and has since gained momentum. The Iraqi military and US-led coalition said that the operation to retake the strategically important city may take weeks or even months.

Earlier this week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) sounded the alarm amid the carnage surrounding the new offensive, warning that IS militants may unleash chemical attacks and use tens of thousands as human shields.

“Tens of thousands of people may be forcibly expelled, they will be getting trapped between fighting lines under siege, they may even be held as human shields,” IOM’s chief of mission for Iraq, Thomas Weiss, told Reuters.

The UN says the aftermath of the Mosul campaign could require the “largest and most complex” humanitarian relief operation in the world, as up to one million people may be forced from their homes.

IS attack on Kirkuk

With Iraqi and Kurdish forces pushing to seize territory around Mosul, the jihadists launched an attack on government buildings in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. On Friday, Islamic State militants reportedly entered houses and mosques in the city, which is located some 174 kilometers (108 miles) from Mosul, and took civilians as hostages. They also broke into a kindergarten building, according to a Rudaw news agency report citing the city’s police chief.

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A curfew was reportedly imposed amid ongoing clashes on Friday. Jihadist terrorists entered Kirkuk’s Asfra Mafqudin quarter in two cars at dawn and knocked on doors, telling people they were “fighters from Islamic State,” according to one eyewitness, who said that the locals were forced to take up arms to defend themselves.

At least 12 IS militants were killed by security and police forces in Kirkuk on Friday, Rudaw reported.

The city, which had been home to about half a million people before the outbreak of hostilities, has taken in some 700,000 displaced people from the country’s central and southern provinces since Islamic State took control of one-third of Iraq in mid-2014, according to Rudaw.

The oil-rich city is claimed by both the Iraqi government and the Kurds in the region. Kurdish forces assumed full control of the city in the summer of 2014, as the Iraqi army crumbled before an IS advance. </s> (IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – Iraqi media outlets reported on Saturday, that the Islamic State group executed 284 persons, including children in the city of Mosul over the past two days.

Al Sumaria News stated, “The victims were killed by firing squad at the Faculty of Agriculture north of the city of Mosul, where they were brought to the site on three consecutive batches,” adding that, “After the execution the bodies were transferred by bulldozers to mass graves at the same area.”

“Nearly 150 of these victims were executed after sunset on Thursday,” Al Sumaria added. “61 victims did not exceed the age of 14 years, and the dead were residents of villages and towns located to the northwest of Mosul, including al-Zawiya town,” Al Sumaria explained.

The ISIS is trying to strengthen its grip on Mosul, while the joint security forces, backed by the Army Aviation and the international coalition air force, continue advancing in the battle to liberate Mosul from the grip of ISIS. </s> The Iraqi military says it has found some 100 decapitated bodies in a mass grave south of the Islamic State-held city of Mosul.

The spokesman for the Joint Military Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, says the bodies were discovered Monday near the agricultural college in the town of Hamam al-Alil. Most were reduced to skeletons.

A forensics team from Baghdad will investigate the site on Tuesday. Rasool says the state of the bodies made it difficult to tell by their clothes if they were soldiers or civilians.

IS has carried out several massacres since it swept into northern and central Iraq in the summer of 2014, often documenting them with photos and videos circulated online.

Iraqi forces launched a massive operation last month to drive the extremists from Mosul and surrounding areas. </s> GENEVA (Reuters) - Islamic State militants killed 40 former members of the Iraqi Security Forces near Mosul on Saturday and threw their bodies in the Tigris river, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said on Tuesday, citing reports from the field.

IS also tried to transport about 25,000 civilians from Hammam al-Alil, a town south of Mosul, on dozens of trucks and minibuses during the hours of darkness early on Monday, probably for use as human shields in defense of IS positions, she said.

Most of the trucks, which were heading toward the Tal Afar district, turned back under pressure from patrolling aircraft, but some buses did reach Abu Saif, 15 km (10 miles) north of Hammam al-Alil, she said.

“We have grave concerns for these and tens of thousands of other civilians who have reportedly been forcibly relocated by ISIL (Islamic State) in the past two weeks,” she said.

IS fighters were taking people closer and closer to Mosul city and putting them close to their offices and to installations that could constitute military targets, Shamdasani said.

“That seems to support the assertion that they are planning to use these people as human shields, as well as ensuring that the area is heavily populated with civilians to frustrate a military operation against them,” she said.

“They are also killing some people that they are abducting, especially people who formerly belonged to the Iraqi Security Forces.”

The 40 former Iraqi soldiers killed on Saturday were among civilians who had been abducted earlier from the al-Shura sub-district of Mosul and from villages around Hammam al-Alil.

There may be many more, Shamdasani said, adding that the U.N.’s reports were “raw information” from reliable sources and were by no means comprehensive.

Although there would be a “temptation for revenge” against captured IS fighters, the U.N. had not documented any such abuses, and it welcomed the Iraqi government’s pledge to put protection of civilians at the heart of their strategy, Shamdasani said.

She also said there were no reports of coalition air strikes killing civilians, including those people being held as human shields. </s> Baku. 3 May. REPORT.AZ/ Several hundred Yazidi captives have been killed in Iraq by Islamic State (IS) militants west of Mosul, Yazidi and Iraqi officials say.

A statement from the Yazidi Progress Party said 300 captives were killed on Friday in the Tal Afar district near the city.

Report informs referring the information given by the BBC, Iraqi Vice-President Osama al-Nujaifi described the reported deaths as "horrific and barbaric".

Thousands of members of the religious minority group were captured last year.

It is not clear how they were killed, or why this has happened now, says the BBC's Middle East editor Alan Johnston.

Many are reported to have been held in Mosul, the main stronghold of IS after the militants swept through large areas of northern and western Iraq, and eastern Syria in 2014. </s> On the outskirts of the village of Al Hud, members of the Iraqi Army visit the area where locals say Islamic State executed four or five Peshmerga in recent months. Another grave containing many more people was in the area but too dangerous to visit due to mines.

WASHINGTON — As many as 64 civilians have been killed in the last 12 months in airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, U.S. Central Command announced Wednesday.

The civilian deaths and eight noncombatant injuries occurred in 24 strikes that were each independently investigated and deemed lawful, said Air Force Col. John Thomas, a spokesman for Central Command. Thirteen of the strikes occurred in Iraq and 11 in Syria.

Thomas said avoiding civilian casualties is a “key tenant” of the Operation Inherent Resolve campaign, and he emphasized the coalition believes it’s possible that less than 64 noncombatants were killed in the strikes.

“We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties,” he said. “… Sometimes civilians bear the brunt of military action, but we do all we can to minimize those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time.”

Thomas said the military takes all reports of civilian casualties seriously. He said coalition investigations used internal records alongside reports from news outlets, non-governmental organizations and other U.S. government department and agencies.

Some outside organizations, including Amnesty International, have accused the U.S. military of inadequate investigations into reports of civilian deaths. In October, Amnesty International accused Operation Inherent Resolve airstrikes in Syria alone of killing more than 300 civilian between September 2014 and June 2016.

Pentagon and Central Command officials have disputed those numbers and touted the military’s commitment to transparency when it is accused of killing civilians.

Here are the airstrikes that Central Command said likely killed civilians since November 2015:
• Nov. 20, 2015, near Dayr-az-Zawr in Syria, against a tactical unit. Five civilians killed and three injured.
• March 5, near Mosul in Iraq, against a weapons production facility. Ten civilians killed.
• March 24, near Qayara in Iraq, against an unspecified militant target. One civilian killed.
• April 1, near Raqqa in Syria, against a tactical unit. Three civilians killed.
• April 9, near Mosul, against a tactical unit. One civilian killed.
• April 30, near Mosul, against Islamic State group military leadership. Five civilians killed.
• May 25, near Mosul, against a tactical unit. One civilian killed.
• May 26, near Mosul, against enemy fighters. One civilian killed.
• May 29, near Mosul, against a weapons system. Six civilians killed.
• June 15, near Kisik in Iraq, against a weapons storage facility. Six civilians killed.
• June 15, near Mosul, against unspecified targets. Two civilians injured.
• June 21, near Raqqa, against a headquarters building. Three civilians killed.
• June 23, near Raqqa, against a militant-held building. Four civilians killed.
• June 26, near Mosul, against an unspecified enemy target. One individual injured.
• June 26, near Mosul, against an unspecified enemy target. One individual injured.
• July 3, near Manbij in Syria, against a fighting position. Four civilians killed.
• July 10, near Manbij, against an unspecified enemy target. Two civilians killed.
• July 14, near Qayara, during a strike on an enemy-held building. One civilian killed.
• July 31, near Manbij, against enemy fighters. One civilian injured.
• Aug. 17, near Raqqa, against an enemy target. Two civilians killed.
• Aug. 20, near Manbij, against an artillery firing position. One civilian killed.
• Aug. 31, near Ramadi in Iraq, against an unspecified enemy target. Two civilians killed.
• Sept. 7, near Dayr-az-Zawr, against an oil collection point. One civilian killed.
• Sept. 10, near Raqqa, against an unspecified enemy target. Five civilians killed.
The UN reports 232 civilians have been murdered in and near Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.