The leadership of Iraqi Federal Police announced that its security forces continued its advancement toward al-Hadba Minaret, in central the city of Mosul, while the US-led coalition provides air coverage. UN Secretary-General António Guterres met Yazidi officials in Kurdistan on Thursday.
Iraqi Federal Police Chief, Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat said in a press statement that troops of the Federal Police continued their advance toward al-Hadba Minaret, after recapturing Qadib al-Ban, in western Mosul.
The Federal Police troops also continue raiding IS-held areas, backed by snipers and drones, in the vicinity of the Great Mosque of Nuri, as well as opening safe havens for civilians to leave the city, Jawdat added.
Earlier today, Federal Police and Rapid Response Forces freed Qadib al-Ban district, in western Mosul, from the Islamic State and raised the Iraqi flag above the buildings.
On Thursday, Iraqi military officials uncovered a new massacre in Mosul and confirmed that at least 100 bodies of Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, were still under the rubble of their homes in the Rijm Hadid district on the right side of Mosul. According to officials, the government is trying to conceal the fate of these people by preventing the media and relief organizations from entering the area since the last week.
"The location of the new massacre is about two kilometers from the site of the first massacre in the new Mosul district," a local official in Mosul said. "The victims are still under the rubble, and there are about 10 neighboring houses that have been destroyed," said Ahmed Sinjri, a member of the Mosul district council.
The Joint Operations Command denied the information provided by the US military about the death and injury of 1884 soldiers from the Iraqi forces in the battles west of Mosul. The spokesman Brigadier Yahya Rasool said that there are sacrifices among the security forces, but not in very large numbers compared to the losses suffered by the ISIS militants.
The Minister of Health in the Kurdistan Regional Government Hama Rashid, said that the region is hosting more than 1.3 million displaced people, pointing out that they receive services from hospitals and health institutions in the region more than the citizens of the region themselves.
Dring his participation in the award ceremony for health staff in the province of Sulaymaniyah, Rashid expressed his pleasure for the efforts exerted to end the crisis in the region.