UNAMI reveals killing and injury of 720 Iraqis in April

Director of the International Information Office at the U.S State Department Richard Bouangan said on Monday that the Iraqi forces supported by the International Coalition managed to achieve notable progress in the framework of the current operations to liberate Iraq’s Mousl from the grip of ISIS extremist group.

According Bouangan, Violence, terrorist acts and armed conflicts across Iraq killed a total of 309 civilians and wounded 387 others in April, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said on Monday. He added, in a press statement statement, that figures of casualties do not include security members, as the Iraqi military declined to give information about casualties among the troops.

Previous figures of security members' casualties were questioned by the Iraqi military as "inaccurate," while UNAMI responded that "the military figures were largely unverified." April's results also excluded the casualties in Iraq's western province of Anbar, where volatility of the situation on the ground disrupted figures from there, the statement said.

Most of the civilian casualties occurred in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, where 153 were killed and 123 others injured in fierce battles between Iraqi forces and Islamic State (IS) militants in western Mosul.

Jan Kubis, the UN envoy to Iraq and the UNAMI chief, said civilians continue to pay a heavy price in the conflict, particularly in Nineveh province where the Iraqi security forces are fighting heavy street battle against IS militants in the provincial capital Mosul, according to the statement.

"ISIS’ terrorists have detonated car bombs in residential neighbourhoods in Mosul and attacked civilians desperately fleeing the fighting as the security forces liberate more territory from the terrorists. But Daesh's atrocities were not confined to the combat zones and spared no one," Kubis said.

"They have struck in liberated areas where people are trying to rebuild their lives, using suicide bombers as in the attack in the Sunni heartland of Tikrit in Salahudin province earlier in April. They have also attacked with a suicide bombing in the Karrada neighbourhood of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad last weekend," Kubis added.

However, Kubis said that the terrorist attacks by IS group "has failed to weaken the will and the unity of the Iraqi people, who are increasingly seeing victory against the terrorists within reach."

The UNAMI statement came as the Iraqi security forces backed by anti-IS international coalition are carrying out a major offensive to drive out the IS militants from its last major stronghold in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

Earlier, the UNAMI said a total of 6,878 civilians were killed and 12,388 wounded in 2016, adding that the figures did not include the civilian casualty figures for Anbar Province for the months of May, July, August and December. Iraq has witnessed intensifying violence since the IS extremist group took control of parts of its northern and western regions in June 2014.

On the military side, a military source announced on Monday that the liberation of the neighborhoods of "Ahramat" and "July 17" began on the right side of Mosul. The source said that "the security forces began the liberation of the neighborhoods of Ahramat and July 17."

Head of the Rapid Response operations, Colonel Riad Jalal, said last Saturday, his forces would storm the July 17 neighborhood on the right side of Mosul in the near future, as the troops moved from the area of Hammam al-Alil to Badush to prepare for the final battle to storm the neighborhood.

Iraqi army commanders said army forces killed 30 Islamic State members and took over a command center on the borders between Anbar and Salahuddin provinces. A source at the Anbar army command told Alsumaria news that a force from the army’s 7th division, backed by fighter jets and paramilitary forces, killed 30 IS members during an operation at the Malha desert region.

The source said a communication facility and two booby-trapped vehicles were also destroyed in the assault. Borders conjoining Anbar, Salahuddin and Diyala have witnessed occasional attacks by Islamic State against government and paramilitary troops deployments since Iraqi forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition and PMus, launched a major offensive to retake areas occupied by IS since 2014, most notably the city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and the group’s most important stronghold in the country.