IS executes dozens near Mosul: report

Islamic State militants have in recent days executed dozens of prisoners taken from villages the group has been forced to abandon by an Iraqi army advance on the city of Mosul, as camps around the city yesterday filled with fleeing civilians.

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This is worth a watch. The inside of a tunnel used by IS fighters...https://t.co/iwk68FcvvW https://t.co/kHwQb43Z5S

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Meanwhile, the United States yesterday said that up to 900 Islamic State group jihadists have been killed in the offensive so far.

Most of those executed were former members of the Iraqi police and army who had lived in areas under Islamic State control south of Mosul, Abdul Rahman al-Waggaa, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, told Reuters.

The militants forced them to leave their homes with their families, and took them to the town of Hammam Al-Alil, 15 km south of Mosul, where the executions took place, he said in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, east of Mosul.

The men were shot dead, he said, quoting the testimony of remaining residents of the villages and people displaced from the area.

The executions were meant "to terrorise the others, those who are in Mosul in particular", and also to get rid of the prisoners, he said.

Separately, Hoshiyar Zebari, an influential Kurdish politician, told Reuters in Erbil that at least 65 people had been executed by Islamic State south of Mosul three days ago.

The militants started rounding up hostages in the villages of Al-Hudd and Al-Lazzaga, after a revolt broke out against them a week ago to aid the army's advance, said Zebari, a former Iraqi finance minister and foreign minister.

More than 20 were put to death as punishment in two villages located just north of the town of Qayyara, he said.

UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville on Tuesday said Islamic State fighters had reportedly killed scores of people around Mosul in the last week.

Colville said security forces discovered the bodies of 70 civilians in houses in Tuloul Naser village south of Mosul last Thursday.

Islamic State also reportedly killed 50 former police officers outside Mosul on Sunday, he said.

Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces on Oct 17 launched an offensive on Mosul, Islamic State's last major city stronghold in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said Iraqi medics have been trained in 'mass casualty management' in the event of the use of chemical weapons by IS.

Around 90 medical professionals were given the training with a focus on procedure during a chemical attack as US-backed Iraqi forces edge ever closer to the Isis-held city of Mosul, the UN body said yesterday.

There are between 3,500 and 5,000 IS jihadists in Mosul and up to another 2,000 in the broader area, according to US estimates.

The offensive has so far been concentrated in towns and villages around Mosul, with Iraqi forces later expected to breach city limits and engage the jihadists in street-to-street fighting.

Aid workers have warned of a major humanitarian crisis when fighting begins in earnest for Mosul, which is home to more than a million people, but thousands have already been fleeing surrounding areas.

Iraq's ministry of displacement and migration yesterday said that more than 11,700 people had been displaced since the operation began.