The United Nations estimates that about 48,000 people have been displaced from their homes due to the fighting in and around Mosul. The Islamic State militants are preventing many more from escaping and are using them as human shields.
However, others do not even have the ability to try to reach refugee camps and are making do in locations that, fortunately, have been captured by Iraqi forces but aren’t equipped to sustain them for long. About 90 percent of those in eastern Mosul, where the fighting is taking place, are believed to be remaining in the city.
Still, the World Health Organization believes about 70 percent of the displaced have reached the camps, even though the roads to the camps are dangerous. Suicide bombers among the refugees are staging attacks at checkpoints designed to prevent them from escaping.
Kurdish forces have been constructing a berm that potentially could be the new border between Iraq and Kurdistan — if Baghdad allows them to keep it there. Kurdish officials say the berm is to protect the troops from suicide car bombers and the like.
Kurdish forces also stand accused of damaging an ancient site at Dur Sharrukin by digging trenches.
In Kirkuk, Turkmen forces dug a trench to prevent attacks.
On Friday, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani praised troops during his prayer day address.
In Mosul, the Qadisiya district was liberated. Zahra was also retaken.
At least 227 people were killed and 10 were wounded:
In Mosul, militants executed 40 people on Tuesday and hung their bodies from utility poles throughout the city. Seventy more executions were reported. A man was shot dead for using a cell phone. At least nine soldiers were killed in battle on Nov. 4. Six militants were executed for fleeing the fighting in Gogjiali. Four militants were killed in Jamasa. In Intisar, a militant leader was killed. At least 29 more militants were killed in fighting.
Twenty civilians were shot to death at the Ghabat military base on Wednesday.
Militants in Zab executed 14 boys and young men.
In Yusufiya, a bomb killed two people and wounded eight more at a market.
A bomb killed two soldiers and wounded two more in Tarmiya.
A sniper in Daquq killed a Peshmerga fighter.
A shopkeeper was shot dead in Baquba.
Security forces in Hadar killed 27 militants.
