IS puts up stiff resistance in Mosul

MOSUL, October 27

Eleven days into what is expected to be the biggest ground offensive in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003, army and federal police units were fighting off sniper fire and suicide car bombs south of Hammam al-Alil, the site of the reported executions on the outskirts of Mosul, an Iraqi military spokesman said.

The militants shot dead dozens of prisoners there, most of them former members of the Iraqi police and army, taken from villages the group has been forced to abandon as the troops advanced, officials in the region said on Wednesday.

The executions were meant “to terrorise the others, those who are in Mosul in particular”, and also to get rid of the prisoners, said Abdul Rahman al-Waggaa, a member of the Nineveh provincial council. Some of the families of those executed are also held in Hammam al-Alil, he said.

UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville has said Islamic State fighters had reportedly killed scores of people around Mosul in the last week. “Assessments have recorded a significant number of female-headed households, raising concerns around the detention or capture of men and boys,” the office of the UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq said.

The coordinator, Lise Grande, said a mass exodus could happen, maybe within the next few days. — Reuters