LIVE BLOG: The battle for Mosul
- Thousands of Iraqi soldiers and militiamen have begun the assault on Mosul
- The city has been held by the Islamic State group since 2014
- Up to 30,000 fighters are said to be taking part in the battle
- Turkey says 1,500 fighters trained by its forces are taking part
- The IS group is said to have upwards of 5,000 fighters in the city
- Aid agencies warn the battle could spark the single worst humanitarian crisis of 2016
Live Updates
This is the moment the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, announced the battle for Mosul had begun. It's been many months in the offing.
The battle for Mosul could create the year's worst single humanitarian crisis, according to the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. That statement must be taken in context with Aleppo, where 250,000 people are trapped and hundreds are dying in Syrian government bombardment, and even Hurricane Matthew, which devastated large parts of the Pacific, killed hundreds and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.
You can read Middle East Eye's full article on the humanitarian situation in Mosul by clicking this link.
A suicide driver detonated a car packed with explosives at a security check-point south of Baghdad on Monday, killing ten people and wounding 25, police and medical sources said.
The blast happened as a convoy of Shia paramilitary fighters drove past the check-point in Yusufiya, 15km south of the Iraqi capital, the sources said.
It caused casualties among police and army personnel manning the position, as well as Shia fighters and civilians, they said.
The bombing comes as Iraqi forces launched earlier today an offensive on Mosul, the last city that remains under control of Islamic State in Iraq.
The group intensified bomb attacks in government-held areas this year as it loses territory to US-backed Iraqi government forces and Shia militias.
The group claimed a truck bombing in July that killed at least 324 people in the Karrada shopping area of Baghdad - the deadliest single attack in Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Almost 1,000 people have been treated for breathing problems linked to toxic gases from a sulfur plant that Islamic State militants are suspected to have set on fire near the city of Mosul, hospital sources said on Saturday.
No deaths were reported in connection with the incident, said the sources at the hospital in Qayyara, a town south of Mosul. The first cases began arriving on Friday morning, they said.
IS rounded up and killed 284 men and boys as Iraqi-led coalition forces closed in on Mosul, the group's last major stronghold in Iraq, an Iraqi intelligence source told CNN.
Those killed on Thursday and Friday were used as human shields against attacks forcing IS out of southern parts of Mosul, the source said.
The US Department of Defense has confirmed that an American military service member was killed by a bomb outside of Mosul during the large-scale anti-IS operation aimed to retake the country's second largest city.
Navy Chief Petty Officer Jason C. Finan, 34, of California was killed while working alongside a bomb detection unit as an advisor.
A Defense official said Finan died on Thursday when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device.
"The entire Navy expeditionary combat command family offers our deepest condolences and sympathies to the family and loved ones of the sailor we lost," said Rear Admiral Brian Brakke.
An air strike killed 15 women on Friday at a shrine near the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, local officials and medics said.
"Fifteen women were killed and another 50 wounded in a raid that targeted a Shiite place of worship at Dakuk," local official Amir Huda Karam told AFP, a toll confirmed by medical officials.
A spat has broken out between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad over the failure of the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, to invite a Kurdish delegation with him during a visit to a conference in Paris on Thursday.
The conference met to discuss the future of Mosul, which KRG forces are currently participating in the recapture.
"The Kurdistan Regional Government strongly denounces the Iraqi Foreign Minister for his improper and unilateral actions, with no regards to the sacrifices made by the Kurdistan Region. Over the past two years, the Kurdistan Region has served as the strongest force to confront the expansion of the most dangerous terrorist organization, the Islamic Caliphate," said a statement released on the KRG website.
"The President of the Kurdistan Region and the Peshmerga forces are delivering major blows to the ISIS terrorists and liberating swaths of land, in an effort to protect our country, the dignity of our people, and the values of humanity.
"Therefore, we ask our partners in the international community to directly invite the Kurdistan Region, which is a major actor in fighting ISIS and hosting refugees, to international events on countering terrorism, the plight of refugees and Mosul's future. Moreover, we ask the Iraqi Federal Government to refrain from repeating similar damaging actions that will only harm the interests of Iraq."
Islamic State group fighters may be preparing to use civilians as human shields, or simply kill them, rather than let them be liberated in an Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul, the UN said Friday.
Elite Iraqi troops have been closing in on Mosul, the last IS bastion in Iraq, in a long-anticipated offensive.
United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said his office had reports that civilians were being held close to IS fighter positions in Mosul, possibly as a buffer against advancing Iraqi forces.
"There is a grave danger that ISIL fighters will not only use such vulnerable people as human shields but may opt to kill them rather than see them liberated,” Zeid said in a statement, using another acronym for IS.