MOSUL, Iraq — The Latest on the Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul (all times local):

Iraqi forces trying to advance further into Mosul are battling waves of car bombs sent by the Islamic State group.

Iraqi special forces Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi said Sunday that "there are so many civilian cars and any one of them could be a bomb."

Iraqi forces say they have cleared the of Qadisiya and Zahra and are now planning to move deeper into the city. They are building sand berms and road blocks to prevent car bombs from breaching the front lines.

Iraqi forces pushed into Mosul earlier this month but have struggled to advance in the face of heavy resistance from militants in still populated by civilians.

Human Rights Watch is accusing the security forces of Iraq's regional Kurdish government of destroying Arab homes and even some villages in areas retaken from the Islamic State group.

The Sunday report says that between September 2014 and May 2016, Kurdish forces advancing against IS destroyed Arab homes in disputed areas of Kirkuk and Nineveh governorates, while Kurdish homes were left intact.

It says the demolitions took place in disputed areas seized from IS by Kurdish forces known as peshmerga. The Kurds say the areas are historically Kurdish and that they intend to incorporate them into the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

All sides fighting in the battle for the northern city of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest, are accused of committing human rights abuses, with the worst allegations focusing on IS.</s>ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State in northern Iraq unlawfully destroyed Arab homes in scores of towns and villages in what may amount to a war crime, U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch said on Sunday.

Kurdish peshmerga forces sit on top of a tank on the outskirts of Kirkuk April 18, 2015. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed

The Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi armed forces have faced a common enemy in Islamic State since the militants took over large parts of Iraq in 2014. Iraqi troops and Kurdish fighters make up the 100,000-strong, U.S.-backed alliance currently battling to retake Mosul.

But animosity persists, going back to decades of mistreatment of Kurds by ruling Arabs in Baghdad, especially under Saddam Hussein. Reuters found last month that Kurds are using the battle against Islamic State to settle old disputes and grab land in ethnically mixed territory separating the Kurdish region in the north from the majority Arab south.

Human Rights Watch said in its report that violations between September 2014 and May 2016 in 21 towns and villages within disputed areas of Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces had followed “a pattern of apparently unlawful demolitions”.

The areas are nominally under the jurisdiction of Baghdad but are controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The Kurdish region has taken in more than 1 million people from elsewhere in Iraq, who have been displaced by the conflict, most of them Sunni Arabs.

The KRG has denied any systematic policy of destruction of Arab homes, but said peshmerga had carried out demolitions for security reasons such as clearing booby-trapped homes.

The HRW report is based on more than a dozen field visits and interviews with over 120 witnesses and officials. Analysis of satellite images suggests property destruction targeted Arab residents long after any military necessity for such actions had ended.

“In village after village in Kirkuk and Nineveh, KRG security forces destroyed Arab homes – but not those belonging to Kurds – for no legitimate military purpose,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW.

The satellite imagery provides evidence of destruction in 62 other villages following their capture by Kurdish security forces, but HRW said a lack of witness accounts made it difficult to determine cause and responsibility in those instances.

Kurdish officials have stated their intention to absorb land recovered from Islamic State into their autonomous region and prevent Arab residents from returning to areas “Arabised” decades ago by Saddam Hussein.

Dindar Zebari, the head of a KRG’s committee tasked with responding to international reports, said authorities had carried out a thorough investigation, examining cases in individual villages.

“There was a strategic intention for the destruction of houses or a number of these villages,” Zebari told reporters in Erbil.

“(The) large presence of IEDs placed in these areas, especially in civilian properties, has been a huge cause of the destruction following the liberation process.

“Sometimes we have no choice ... before entering a village you destroy as much as you can to make sure everything is safe.”

Zebari attributed much of the rest of the damage to U.S.-led coalition air strikes on IS positions or to exchanges of artillery fire during fighting.

He said militiamen allied to the peshmerga had demolished some homes in apparent revenge, but denied peshmerga participation in those cases.

HRW called on the United States and other members of an international coalition backing Iraqi forces in the fight against Islamic State to pressure the Kurdish authorities to end the demolitions.</s>MOSUL, Iraq — The Iraqi army said Sunday that troops have driven Islamic State militants out of the town of Nimrud, south of Mosul, near the site of famed ancient Assyrian ruins that were reportedly destroyed by the extremists.

Iraq's special forces meanwhile battled militants in the city of Mosul itself, where they struggled to advance against waves of suicide car bombs.

Troops are converging from several fronts on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the biggest urban area under IS control, as part of an offensive launched last month. The special forces have advanced the furthest so far, and hold a handful of districts on the city's eastern edge.

The commander of the Mosul operation said troops took Nimrud, some 19 miles (30 kilometers) to the south, after heavy fighting. It was unclear if they had liberated the nearby 13th-century B.C. archaeological site.

"The 9th division of the Iraqi army has liberated the town of Nimrud completely and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings after the enemy suffered heavy casualties," Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Raheed Yar Allah said in a statement.

The late 1980s discovery of treasures in Nimrud's royal tombs was one of the 20th century's most significant archaeological finds. The government said militants, who captured the site in June 2014, destroyed it the following year using heavy military vehicles.

In Mosul itself, the special forces say they have cleared the Qadisiya and Zahra neighborhoods, and are planning to advance further in the coming hours. Over the past week they have inched forward slowly, trying to avoid casualties among their troops and civilians as suicide bombers in armor-plated vehicles rush forward from hiding spots among densely populated areas.

"The only weapons they have left are car bombs and explosives," said Iraqi special forces Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi as he radioed with commanders in the field. "There are so many civilian cars and any one of them could be a bomb," he said.

Troops were building berms and road blocks to prevent car bombs from breaching the front lines. Since last week's quick advance into Mosul proper, they have struggled to hold territory under heavy IS counterattacks.

Several suicide car bombers attacked the advancing special forces on Saturday, wounding around a dozen troops, three civilians, and killing a child, officers said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief reporters.

The Iraqi armed forces do not release official casualty figures, but field medics have noted dozens of killed and wounded since the operation to liberate the city began on Oct. 17.

Civilians are paying a heavy toll in the battle for Mosul, with nearly 50,000 forced from their homes, most living in displaced persons camps. The Norwegian Refugee Council said Sunday that conditions were worsening for non-combatants, especially over the past week.

"Civilians have told us of horrific stories from inside Mosul," said Wolfgang Gressmann, the group's Iraq director. "They have given terrifying accounts of IS moving them from neighborhood to neighborhood, and from house to house, in tactics identical with being used as human shields."

Meanwhile, a leading U.S.-based rights group released a report alleging that security forces of Iraq's regional Kurdish government had routinely destroyed Arab homes and even some whole villages in areas retaken from the Islamic State group over the past two years.

The Human Rights Watch report said that between September 2014 and May 2016, Kurdish forces advancing against IS destroyed Arab homes in disputed areas of Kirkuk and Ninevah provinces, while Kurdish homes were left intact. It says the demolitions took place in disputed areas in northern Iraq which the Kurds want to incorporate into their autonomous region over the objections of the central government.

Sunni Arab politicians have previously accused the Kurds of seeking to recast the demographics of mixed areas in northern Iraq. The struggle is particularly intense in the oil-rich Kirkuk region.

"In village after village in Kirkuk and Ninevah, (Kurdish Regional Government) security forces destroyed Arab homes — but not those belonging to Kurds — for no legitimate military purpose," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "KRG leaders' political goals don't justify demolishing homes illegally."

All sides fighting in the battle for Mosul have been accused of human rights abuses, with the worst allegations focusing on IS.

Kurdish forces have been accused of destroying Arab homes before, with a report last year by Amnesty International alleging that the peshmerga carried out the attacks in retaliation for what they said was the Arab communities' support for IS.

Kurdish authorities say they abide by human rights laws and deny having any strategy to destroy homes. But they say some villages in which the population fought alongside IS have suffered extensive destruction because of the ferocity of the battles.

"There was a large presence of IEDs placed in these areas," said Kurdish official Dindar Zebari, referring to Sunday's report. "I have to say this was a huge cause of the destruction following the liberation process."</s>Canada’s Kurdish allies in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq are being accused of war crimes by destroying large numbers of Arab homes, and sometimes entire villages, as they reclaim territory from the jihadist group, a major human rights group says.

It says hundreds of Arab Iraqi homes have been destroyed by the ethnically distinct Kurds in Iraq. Kurdish leaders are pledging a referendum on independence from Iraq.

Human Rights Watch, in a report released Sunday, is calling on Western allies of the Kurds including Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom to publicly speak out and seek an end to what are violations of international law.

All these countries provide military assistance to the Kurds as they wage war to rout Islamic State from the region. In Canada’s case, the aid includes as many as 210 special forces soldiers acting as military advisers in the fight, which currently includes liberating the city of Mosul, the last remaining Islamic State stronghold in Iraq.

“The destruction, which took place after [Kurdish] peshmerga forces routed Islamic State fighters, targeted Arab homes while leaving Kurdish homes intact,” Human Rights Watch said.

Read more: Canadian forces providing crucial support in battle to recapture Mosul

Explainer: A guide to the battle of Mosul, and why it matters in the war against Islamic State

Interactive: Untangling the Middle East: A guide to the region’s shifting relationships

The Kurds, a distinct ethnic group in Iraq, already have considerable autonomy within the northern reaches of the beleaguered Mideast country that was overrun by Islamic State fighters in 2014. It’s expected the Kurdistan Regional Government will seek to consolidate its power base in the region when the fight against Islamic State subsides.

The Kurdish leadership is vowing to hold a referendum on independence from Iraq.

The 80-page report, titled Marked with an X: Iraqi Kurdish Forces’ Destruction of Villages, Homes in Conflict with ISIS, analyzed the demolition of homes over the 20 months leading up to May 2016.

All these incidents took place in the outer limits of the Kurdistan government’s control – disputed areas known as the Kirkuk and Nineveh governorates, areas that are nominally under the control of the Iraqi leadership in Baghdad but are in reality under Kurdish control.

Human Rights Watch says the Kurds have carried out “unlawful demolitions” of Arab buildings and homes in 17 villages and towns in Kirkuk and four in Nineveh governorate over the period studied. In many of these cases, the group says, “In village after village in Kirkuk and Nineveh, [Kurdistan Regional Government] security forces destroyed Arab homes – but not those belonging to Kurds – for no legitimate military purpose,” Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch says.

The destruction of Arab homes will discourage Arab Iraqis displaced by the Islamic State invasion in 2014 from returning to live in these disputed regions. That will leave them more ethnically Kurdish and make it easier for the Kurds to make the case they should be granted full control over these areas.

The report is based on field visits by Human Rights Watch researchers, more than 120 interviews with witnesses and officials, and extensive analysis of satellite imagery. Human Rights Watch said it closely examined home demolitions in 17 villages in Kirkuk governorate and four in Nineveh governorate, and travelled through other destroyed villages in Nineveh, close to the Syrian border.

It says there were a further 62 villages that researchers were unable to visit but where satellite imagery provides evidence of destruction after Kurdish security forces recaptured them.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) blamed the destroyed homes on Islamic State bombs left over after the jihadists retreated. The Kurds said they had to detonate the explosives to rid the region of these hazards. It also said the destruction was caused by aerial bombardment by the U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State.

Human Rights Watch says that this excuse does not make sense. It says the destruction in question often took place after the Kurdish peshmerga forces had taken over.

The group also says the bomb-clearing rationale is weak.

“The KRG’s claims regarding the need to destroy homes to defuse improvised explosive devices in villages they captured from ISIS does not stand up to scrutiny. For example, in villages in Nineveh governorate visited by Human Rights Watch researchers, it appears that the KRG destroyed only Arab homes while leaving Kurdish ones intact.”

The group said researchers found demolished Arab buildings in towns such as Bardiya, Iraq next to intact Kurdish buildings, and the intact Kurdish part of Hamad Agha village.

Human Rights Watch said it appears the Kurds also plan to prevent displaced Arab Iraqis from returning to their villages in these disputed areas.

“KRG President Masoud Barzani told Human Rights Watch in July 2016 that the KRG would not allow Sunni Arabs to return to villages that had been ‘Arabized’ by former President Saddam Hussein. He said these were, in his view, rightfully Kurdish lands. Such territorial claims lend credence to the belief of many Arabs that KRG security forces may have carried out demolitions for the purpose of preventing or dissuading Arabs from returning there.”

Human Rights Watch said the laws of war prevent the Kurds from doing what they have done.

“Central to the laws of war is the principle of distinction, which requires parties to a conflict to distinguish at all times between military and civilian objectives. Civilian objects may not be the target of attack unless they are being used for military purposes. The parties to an armed conflict have a duty to spare the civilian population and civilian objects from the effects of hostilities and to minimize damage to civilian objects.”

The group says Western allies appear to be staying silent on the matter.

It noted governments of several countries in the international coalition against Islamic State, including the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada have supported the Kurds with military hardware and training. Some carry out joint military operations with KRG forces.

“No officials of these countries have publicly spoken out about the need for the KRG to end unlawful building demolitions in violation of the laws of war and international human rights law and to hold those responsible to account.”</s>Kurdish Regional Government forces, also known as the Peshmerga, is a 100,000-strong military force, backed by the United States in its mission to drive out ISIS from Iraq.

The US-based human rights group released a report Sunday detailing at least 21 attacks carried out by Kurdish fighters on villages with mixed Kurdish and Arab residents between September 2014 and May 2016 in disputed parts of Kirkuk and Nineveh, governorates in northern Iraq. Researchers spoke to witnesses on the ground and say they found destroyed Arab buildings next to intact Kurdish-owned ones.

"In village after village in Kirkuk and Nineveh, KRG security forces destroyed Arab homes -- but not those belonging to Kurds -- for no legitimate military purpose," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

Satellite imagery from 62 villages show evidence of destruction after Kurdish forces recaptured them from ISIS but a lack of presence on the ground in those areas make it difficult to independently confirm if they were indeed destroyed by Kurdish troops.

In one incident in May 2016, residents in Qarah Tappah, a village west of Kirkuk city, said they saw Kurdish officials marking at least two dozen homes belonging to Arab residents who had fled with an "X" sign to later be bulldozed by Kurdish forces. Villagers also told HRW they saw Kurdish security officials looting an Arab farm -- taking livestock and thousands of dollars' worth of crops. In this handout image provided by Human Rights Watch, destroyed houses are seen in Qarah Tappah, Iraq, with partial red X still visible, May 20, 2016. Dindar Zebari, head of the KRG Foreign Relations Department's Committee to Evaluate and Respond to International Reports, spoke directly to the incident in Qarah Tappah. He said that 18 of the homes in question belonged to ISIS fighters and some were booby-trapped with improvised explosive devices, which would have been difficult for the troops to dismantle. HRW says the demolitions of targeted homes were not directly related to military operations against ISIS and therefore count as unlawful destruction of civilian property under the Geneva Conventions. The group also cites incidents in which destroyed homes were in areas that ISIS never captured and therefore could not have contained IEDs. The report puts into question whether the Kurdish Regional Government actually intends for Arab residents who fled during the fighting to return to their villages. KRG President Masoud Barzani told HRW in July that his forces would not allow Sunni Arabs to return to villages that were "Arabized" by former President Saddam Hussein. In his view, those are historically and rightfully Kurdish lands and potentially part of a future independent Kurdistan, which Barzani has long championed. Kurdish officials are strongly denying any systematic destruction of Arab-owned homes. KRG Spokesman Safeen Dizayee told CNN that HRW's report is imbalanced and does not reflect the reality on the ground. He added that the notion of a deliberate policy to target Arab property is "absolutely ridiculous" and that many of the homes were destroyed by either airstrikes or ISIS fighters. HRW is calling on countries supporting the KRG, including the United States and Germany, to pressure Kurdish officials to investigate their forces for the destruction of civilian property, amounting to possible war crimes.</s>BAGHDAD — The security forces of Iraq's regional Kurdish government have routinely destroyed Arab homes and even some whole villages in areas retaken from the Islamic State group over the past two years, according to a new report issued Sunday by Human Rights Watch.

The report says that between September 2014 and May 2016, Kurdish forces advancing against IS destroyed Arab homes in disputed areas of Kirkuk and Ninevah provinces, while Kurdish homes were left intact. It says the demolitions took place in disputed areas in northern Iraq which the Kurds want to incorporate into their autonomous region over the objections of the central government.

Sunni Arab politicians have previously accused the Kurds of seeking to recast the demographics of mixed areas in northern Iraq. The struggle is particularly intense in the oil-rich Kirkuk region.

"In village after village in Kirkuk and Ninevah, KRG security forces destroyed Arab homes — but not those belonging to Kurds — for no legitimate military purpose," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "KRG leaders' political goals don't justify demolishing homes illegally."

All sides fighting in the current battle for Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, have been accused of past human rights abuses, with the worst allegations focusing on IS.

Kurdish forces of have been accused of destroying Arab homes before, with a report last year by Amnesty International alleging that the peshmerga carried out the attacks in retaliation for what they said was Arab communities' support for IS.

Kurdish authorities say that they abide by human rights laws and have denied having any strategy to destroy homes. But they say some villages in which the population fought alongside IS have suffered extensive destruction because of the ferocity of the battles.

Kurdish officials could not be immediately reached for comment on the fresh allegations.</s>MOSUL, Iraq -- Iraqi forces battled waves of suicide car bombs on Sunday as they attempt to advance deeper into Mosul in the face of heavy resistance from the Islamic State group.

Troops are converging from several fronts on the city, Iraq's second-largest and the extremists' last major holdout in the country. The special forces have advanced the furthest so far, and hold a handful of urban districts.

Officers say they have cleared the neighborhoods of Qadisiya and Zahra, and are planning to advance further in the coming hours. Over the past week they have inched forward slowly, trying to avoid casualties among their troops and civilians as suicide bombers in armor-plated vehicles rush forward from hiding spots among densely populated areas.

"The only weapons they have left are car bombs and explosives," said Iraqi special forces Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi as he radioed with commanders in the field. "There are so many civilian cars and any one of them could be a bomb," he said.

Several suicide car bombers attacked in the same area on Saturday, wounding around a dozen troops, three civilians, and killing a child, officers said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief reporters.

The troops are building berms and road blocks to prevent car bombs from breaching the front lines. Since last week's quick advance into Mosul proper, they have struggled to hold territory under heavy IS counterattacks.

The Iraqi armed forces do not release official casualty figures, but field medics have noted dozens of killed and wounded since the operation to liberate the city began on Oct. 17.

Meanwhile, a leading U.S.-based rights group released a report alleging that security forces of Iraq's regional Kurdish government had routinely destroyed Arab homes and even some whole villages in areas retaken from the Islamic State group over the past two years.

The Human Rights Watch report says that between September 2014 and May 2016, Kurdish forces advancing against IS destroyed Arab homes in disputed areas of Kirkuk and Ninevah provinces, while Kurdish homes were left intact. It says the demolitions took place in disputed areas in northern Iraq which the Kurds want to incorporate into their autonomous region over the objections of the central government.

Sunni Arab politicians have previously accused the Kurds of seeking to recast the demographics of mixed areas in northern Iraq. The struggle is particularly intense in the oil-rich Kirkuk region.

"In village after village in Kirkuk and Ninevah, KRG security forces destroyed Arab homes - but not those belonging to Kurds - for no legitimate military purpose," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "KRG leaders' political goals don't justify demolishing homes illegally."

All sides fighting in the battle for Mosul have been accused of human rights abuses, with the worst allegations focusing on IS.

Kurdish forces have been accused of destroying Arab homes before, with a report last year by Amnesty International alleging that the peshmerga carried out the attacks in retaliation for what they said was the Arab communities' support for IS.

Kurdish authorities say they abide by human rights laws and deny having any strategy to destroy homes. But they say some villages in which the population fought alongside IS have suffered extensive destruction because of the ferocity of the battles.

Kurdish officials could not be immediately reached for comment on the fresh allegations.</s>Kurdish peshmerga fighters are part of a 100,000-strong Iraqi alliance, backed by U.S.-led air strikes and advisers, that is battling to retake Mosul from Islamic State but has so far gained just a small foothold in the city.

The New York-based group said in a report that violations between September 2014 and May 2016 in 21 towns and villages within disputed areas of Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces had followed "a pattern of apparently unlawful demolitions".

The areas are nominally under the jurisdiction of Baghdad but are controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which pushed back Islamic State from swathes of northern Iraq that the jihadists seized in 2014 and has accepted more than 1 million people - mostly Sunni Arabs - displaced by the conflict.

The HRW report is based on more than a dozen field visits and interviews with over 120 witnesses and officials. Analysis of satellite images suggests property destruction targeted Arab residents long after any military necessity for such actions had ended.

"In village after village in Kirkuk and Nineveh, KRG security forces destroyed Arab homes – but not those belonging to Kurds – for no legitimate military purpose," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW. "KRG leaders' political goals don't justify demolishing homes illegally."

The satellite imagery provides evidence of destruction in 62 other villages following their capture by Kurdish security forces, but HRW said a lack of witness accounts made it difficult to determine cause and responsibility in those instances.

Kurdish officials have stated their intention to absorb land recovered from Islamic State into their autonomous region and prevent Arab residents from returning to areas "Arabised" decades ago by Saddam Hussein.

A KRG spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the report.

A Reuters investigation last month found the Kurds are using the battle against Islamic State to settle old disputes and grab land in the ethnically mixed ribbon of territory that divides the Kurdish area in the north of Iraq from the Arab-majority part in the south.

HRW called on the United States and other members of an international coalition backing Iraqi forces in the fight against Islamic State to pressure the Kurdish authorities to end the demolitions.
Human Rights Watch says that Kurdish Regional Government forces have destroyed Arab homes and villages in northern Iraq in what may amount to a war crime.