At least 149 people were killed today, and another 104 were wounded. A pair of bombs in Baghdad added to the civilian casualties, while operations in Anbar and south of Baghdad killed scores of militants.
Politics:
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the government has set aside more than $850 million dollars to help those Iraqis displaced by militants.
Due to fears over the Islamic State‘s obsession with destroying shrines, relatives of former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein have removed his body from its mausoleum and taken it to an undisclosed location. The family also fears government airstrikes against the tomb.
Fighting:
A Hezbollah commander was killed in a battle near Mosul. Details are few. This is the first evidence that the Iranian-backed Lebanese group is fighting in Iraq.
Shi’ite militiamen killed 15 Sunnis, who were kidnapped during the last few days, and then hung up the bodies in Baquba, in order to deter support for the Islamic State. A similar scene occurred a few days ago, but those corpses belonged to militants killed in battles.
In Sadr City, a car bomb killed 16 people and wounding 28 more. A bomb in Baghdad killed eight people and wounded 20 more in the Amin district.
A car bomb in al-Baghdadi killed six people and wounded six more.
Four people were killed and 11 more were wounded during another round of shelling in Falluja.
Airstrikes in Mosul wounded nine civilians. Gunmen killed two ISIS/DAASH militants at their checkpoint.
The military said that 59 militants were killed during operations in Jurf al-Sakhar, Falluja and Garma.
Operations in al-Gragol and Yusufiya killed 18 more and wounded another thirty.
An airstrike killed 11 militants in Samarra.
Eight militants were killed in Adhaim.
