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> 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> '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> 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.

Read more

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.

Read more

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> Baghdad (Iraqinews.com) – Indian Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh is scheduled to arrive in Iraq Sunday to bring back remains of 38 Indian workers, who were killed by Islamic State (IS) militants in Mosul.

“I am going to Mosul to get mortal remains of 38 Indians,” XNews TV channel quoted Singh as saying, adding that the body of another dead worker will not be reclaimed now as “his case is pending.”

Singh stressed that the Iraqi government will hand over “coffins (of slain workers) to the family members with evidence so that they have no doubts about it.”

He also offered condolences to the families of the deceased.

The Indian Express reported in June 2016, quoting Kurdish officials, that there was no sign of the 39 Indian workers in Iraq.

Last year, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj firmly said that she would not declare the 39 Indian workers, who were kidnapped by Islamic State (IS) militants in Mosul city three years ago, dead without concrete proof or evidence.

The abducted workers, mostly from northern India, had been found buried in a mound of earth near Badush, a village northwest of Mosul, on March 20.

They were employed by a construction company near Mosul when militants overran the Iraqi city and seized wide swaths of territory in 2014. </s> Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibility for the blasts that took place, north of Tikrit, which left many people killed and injured.

The media-arm of IS, Amaq news agency, said 17 personnel of al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) were killed, while 30 others were wounded in an ambush at Asdeira village in Shirqat town.

On Thursday, Ali Dawdah, mayor of Shirqat, said in a statement, “ten people were killed, while 14 others were wounded as explosives went off while digging tombs, on Wednesday night. The bombs were planted in a grave in Asdeira village in western Shirqat, north of Salahuddin.”

Islamic State continues to launch sporadic attacks across Iraq against troops. Security reports indicate that the militant group still poses threat against stability in the country.

A total of 104 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, while 177 others were injured in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in Iraq in March, according to casualty figures by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

Thousands of IS militants as well as Iraqi civilians were killed since the government campaign, backed by paramilitary troops and the coalition was launched in October 2016 to fight the militant group, which declared a self-styled “caliphate” from Mosul in June 2014.

In December, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced full liberation of Iraqi lands, declaring end of war against IS members. </s> Six ISIL terrorists were killed during security operations in northern Iraq, the Security Press Center said Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the center, Brigadier General Yahya Resul, said the ISIL members were killed by Iraqi security forces affiliated with the army and police during operations backed by the Iraqi Air Force in Saladin governorate's administrative center, Tikrit.

Tikrit is located northwest of the country's capital, Baghdad.

Although Baghdad says the territory was cleared of ISIL last December, sleeper cells of the terrorist organization sometimes carry out attacks.

ISIL overran vast swathes of northern and western Iraq in mid-2014. But its military presence was largely destroyed late last year following a nine-month campaign by the Iraqi army centered on the northern city of Mosul. </s> Baghdad (Iraqinews.com) – The Iraqi Health Ministry said on Sunday that it handed over bodies of 38 Indian workers, who were killed by Islamic State (IS) militants in Mosul, to the Indian Embassy in Iraq to be flown home later Sunday, according to Sputnik News.

Indian Ambassador to Iraq Pradeep Singh Rajpurohit said the bodies had been taken to Baghdad International Airport and would be flown back on a military flight, arriving in India on Monday.

Indian Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh had arrived here earlier in the day to bring back home remains of the 38 Indian workers, who were found buried in a mound of earth near Badush, a village northwest of Mosul, on March 20.

“I am going to Mosul to get mortal remains of 38 Indians,” XNews TV channel quoted Singh as saying, adding that the body of another dead worker will not be reclaimed now as “his case is pending.”

Singh stressed that the Indian government will hand over “coffins (of slain workers) to the family members with evidence so that they have no doubts about it.” He also offered condolences to the families of the deceased.

The Indian Express reported in June 2016, quoting Kurdish officials, that there was no sign of the 39 Indian workers in Iraq.

Last year, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj firmly said that she would not declare the 39 Indian workers, who were kidnapped by Islamic State (IS) militants in Mosul city three years ago, dead without concrete proof or evidence.

The abducted workers, mostly from northern India, had been found buried in a mound of earth near Badush, a village northwest of Mosul, on March 20.

They were employed by a construction company near Mosul when militants overran the Iraqi city and seized wide swaths of territory in 2014. </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.
United Nations Human Rights Council spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani says ISIL militants killed 40 former Iraqi Security Forces members and threw their bodies in the Tigris river near Mosul on Saturday.