Human Rights Watch released a report detailing the conditions some detainees, including children as young as 13, are suffering in makeshift prisons. About 1,000 fighters in the Ezidkhan Protection Force were folded into the Kurdish Peshmerga, but not without some controversy over which members did not make the cut. The Yazidi group operates in the Sinjar area.
Despite poor weather, Iraqi troops are slowly approaching the Iron Bridge in Mosul. A commando in the Counter Terrorism Service described the fighting as moving “house by house.”
At least 130 were killed and 126 were wounded:
In Mosul, artillery fire and strikes killed 25 civilians and wounded 117 more. A bomb in the Salam neighborhood killed eight civilians and wounded five more. Clashes in Bab al-Toub left three soldiers dead and four wounded. A possible chemical attack near the Ashur Hotel sickened a number of soldiers and journalists (video). Twenty militants were killed in Neft. Fifteen were killed in Hadar. Five more militants were killed at a market.
In Badush, a mass grave yielded 20 bodies belonging to soldiers; another body was found buried separately.
A civilian was shot dead in Kirkuk.
Security forces repelled attacks in Harariyat and the Makhoul Mountains, where they killed 32 militants.
