Reports show IS using chemical weapons in Mosul — UN office

Meanwhile in Syria, U.S. defense officials maintain that the coalition of Arab and Kurdish forces who have begun their assault on Raqqa remains solid, despite reports that the majority of the Arab fighters under the Syrian Defense Forces or SDF, have abandoned the operation. “The clashes are ongoing”, Staff Lieutenant Colonel Muntadhar Salem said, referring to an area in the east of the city.

Commanders of Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) said troops were advancing on two eastern neighbourhoods of the city.

Iraqi counterterrorism forces continue to deliberately isolate and clear areas of Mosul’s eastern districts, securing key neighborhoods, the press secretary said.

Army officers told Reuters in September the militants had moved concrete blast walls onto the runway to prevent planes from landing there.

A group of soldiers at the checkpoint also told AP they had heard reports of suspected IS fighters being beaten and killed by security forces.

On the southern front, security forces took cover behind a mound of earth and fired at Islamic State positions from armored gun turrets. Six others had been hanged on October 20 for hiding SIM cards, and 20 more were reportedly shot on Wednesday for leaking information to the Iraqi security forces. “We can only speculate how they intend to use this”, she said, “We are simply raising the alarm that this is happening, that this is being stockpiled”. Amnesty International has accused Iraqi forces of torturing and killing civilians in villages south of the city.

“Units of the 9th Armored Division and the Hashed al-Ashaeri (tribal militia) are beginning to advance to liberate the villages of Abbas Rajab and Al-Nomaniyah, toward Nimrud”, it said.

Nimrud was bulldozed previous year as part of Daesh’s campaign to destroy symbols they considered idolatrous, said the Iraqi government.

The troops are expected to recapture the ancient Assyrian archeological site of Nimrud, which was founded in the 13th century B.C. and became the capital of Assyrian empire.

Islamic State fighters have killed some 70 civilians in Mosul this week over accusations of collaboration with Iraqi forces pushing into the city to drive them out, the United Nations has said.

Iraqi security forces are continuing their drive to take back Mosul in the custody.

Among them was 60-year-old Khan Amir Mohammed, who discovered that his home had been turned into a mortar post by the militants, who dug seven tunnels on his family’s 3 1/2-acre property before retreating.

“Without effective measures to suppress and punish serious violations, there is a real risk that we could see war crimes of this kind repeated in other Iraqi villages and towns during the Mosul offensive”.

“They were bombarding the Zahra neighborhood where the Iraqi forces are”.

Without “the blood of these dear ones and their continuous steadfastness, only God would know what fate would await Iraq and others”, said Seyyid Ahmed al-Safi, who delivered the Friday sermon in the holy city of Kerbala on behalf of the aged and reclusive Shi’ite religious leader.