U.S. President Barack Obama spoke before the American public today about fighting the Islamic State in Iraq. Meanwhile, at least 228 people were killed or found dead today. Dozens were found in mass graves, perhaps even hundreds. Another 59 were wounded, mostly in Baghdad, where suicide bombers took their toll.
A Sunni Sheikh claims that a mass grave containing up to 500 victims was found near Mosul in Humaidiyat. The men appeared to have been kidnapped from Badush prison. The find has not been independently confirmed.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber drove into a police checkpoint, where he killed five policemen and wounded nine others. Almost simultaneously, a car bomb exploded at a nearby pet market, killing 14 people and wounded 35 more. At least 12 more were reported wounded in the two attacks. Dozens of birds were also killed. Later at a Ghadeer police post, another suicide bomber killed eight people, including two civilians. A sticky bomb on a minibus killed three passengers. A body was found in Zaafaraniya.
Militants in Mosul executed 31 police officers. Forty militants were killed in an airstrike.
Thirty-five bodies were found in a mass grave in Zumer. Among the victims, who were all Yazidi, were children and elderly people.
In Barzak, security forces found a mass grave containing 14 Yazidi bodies, some of them under 15 years of age.
An airstrike killed three civilian brothers in Qayara.
Gunmen seriously wounded a university professor who is a candidate for a coalition of Kirkuk Arabs. Gunmen kidnapped an oil employee.
A bomb near a lumberyard in Abu Saida wounded two people, one of them critically.
Across Salah ad Din province, 37 militants were killed.
Security forces killed 18 militants in Duluiya. Another nine were also killed.
Four militants were killed in Sinjar.
In Taji, two militants were killed.
Two gunmen were killed in Arab Jabour as they were trying to plant a roadside bomb.
Security forces killed "two militant princes" in Dujail.
A suicide bomber was killed at a checkpoint between Saqlawiya and Samarra.
