Six ISIL terrorists were killed during security operations in northern Iraq, the Security Press Center said Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the center, Brigadier General Yahya Resul, said the ISIL members were killed by Iraqi security forces affiliated with the army and police during operations backed by the Iraqi Air Force in Saladin governorate's administrative center, Tikrit.

Tikrit is located northwest of the country's capital, Baghdad.

Although Baghdad says the territory was cleared of ISIL last December, sleeper cells of the terrorist organization sometimes carry out attacks.

ISIL overran vast swathes of northern and western Iraq in mid-2014. But its military presence was largely destroyed late last year following a nine-month campaign by the Iraqi army centered on the northern city of Mosul.</s>An Iraqi court has given the death penalty to a man who acted as a legislative judge in Mosul for the Islamic State (IS) when the group was in control of the city, said a judicial spokesman on Thursday.

The defendant, whose name was not specified, was reported to have been in charge of marriage contracts in Mosul and surrounding areas.

"The Nineveh Criminal Court sentenced an Islamic State militant to death,” said Abdul Sattar al-Birqdar, spokesperson for Iraq's Higher Judicial Council, in a statement. “The convict used to work as a judge in the marriage contracts court, within the so-called legislative courts of Islamic State in Mosul.”

One day before, al-Birqdar and another judicial official announced that, since the beginning of the year, over 300 suspects have been handed death sentences for crimes related to IS membership.

The cases, being heard in federal courts in Baghdad and Nineveh provinces, also resulted in several hundred lesser sentences, including life imprisonment.

The rise of executions in the country has led the UN mission in Iraq, the EU, and international human rights groups to criticize Iraq for a lack of transparency in its courts.

"These executions follow rushed trials of ISIS suspects which are riddled with due process violations, including convictions based solely on confessions which are sometimes extracted by torture," said HRW senior Iraq researcher Belkis Wille in a press release on Tuesday.

The death penalty in Iraq was suspended on June 10, 2003, but was reinstated the following year. Critics say that the country's flawed and confession-based criminal justice system in which torture is routinely used to extract confessions is incompatible with so final a sentence as capital punishment.

Iraq's Justice Ministry announced on Monday that it had executed 13 convicted prisoners, 11 of them over charges of terrorism.

Last year, Iraqi forces arrested tens of thousands of those accused of being Islamic State (IS) members and affiliates, most of whom await sentencing.</s>U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces closing in on the Islamic State-held western half of Mosul attack the city's airport and a nearby military base. Rough Cut (no reporter narration)</s>FILE PHOTO: Members of the Iraqi Army's 9th Armoured Division are photographed with an Islamic State flag, claimed after fighting with Islamic State militants in western Mosul Thomson Reuters BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi courts have sentenced 212 people to death in Mosul and surrounding areas, most of them for complicity with Islamic State, since the area was retaken by Iraqi forces in July and August 2017, a judiciary spokesman said on Wednesday.

Mosul was home to two million people before being overrun in 2014 by Islamic State which proclaimed a "caliphate" stretching into neighboring Syria.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared full victory over the group last December after Iraqi forces drove its last remnants from the country.

Since then, Human rights groups have accused Iraqi and other regional forces of inconsistencies in the judicial process and flawed trials leading to unfair convictions.

Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council said on Wednesday that criminal courts falling under the Nineveh Federal Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Mosul, had so far ruled on a total of 815 cases since the area was recaptured from Islamic State.

"The statistics coming from the criminal courts show that 815 people have gone on trial and that 212 were sentenced to death. A further 150 were sentenced to life in prison," said judiciary spokesman Judge Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar.

It was not immediately clear how many, if any, of the death sentences had been already carried out.

"The vast majority of these rulings were against elements of the Islamic State terrorist organization who were proven to have committed crimes, and came after public trials conducted in accordance with the law. Defendants were afforded their rights," Birqdar said.

Another 341 people were jailed for various terms and 112 were acquitted, he said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch released an 80-page report in December accusing Iraqi federal and Kurdish regional judiciaries of violating the rights of Islamic State suspects with flawed trials, arbitrary detentions under harsh conditions and broad prosecutions.</s>Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) An Iraqi court has sentenced Islamic State’s legislative judge, who was in charge of marriage contracts while the militant group was in control of Mosul city.

Nineveh Criminal Court sentenced an Islamic State militant to death,” Abdul Satar Bayraqdar, spokesperson for the High Judicial Council, said in a statement on Thursday. “The convict used to work as a judge in the marriage contracts court, within the so-called legislative courts of Islamic State in Mosul.”

On Wednesday, Bayraqdar said the same court issued verdicts against 815 convicts, with 212 death sentences and 150 life sentences over terrorism charges.

Estimates show that Iraq detains around 1,400 foreign wives and children in a facility, north of the country, over doubts of belonging to Islamic State.

Earlier this week, the Iraqi Justice Ministry has announced carrying out death sentences against 13 convicts, most of whom are involved in terrorism.

Six Turkish females were sentenced to death over affiliation to Islamic State, earlier in April.

In March, the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad has sentenced 13 Turkish women to death over the same charge. The same court sentenced number of women to life and death over belonging to Islamic State. Some of them were Azeri, Turkish and Iraqi.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over the militant group, previously in December, however, observers warn that the group still poses a security threat with sleeper cells.</s>French woman Djamila Boutoutaou, linked with the Daesh terrorist group, attends her trial at the central penal Court in Baghdad on Tuesday (AFP photo)

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi courts have sentenced 212 people to death in Mosul and surrounding areas, most of them for complicity with the Daesh terrorist group, since the area was retaken by Iraqi forces in July and August 2017, a judiciary spokesman said on Wednesday.

Mosul was home to 2 million people before being overrun in 2014 by Daesh, which proclaimed a “caliphate” stretching into neighbouring Syria.

Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi declared full victory over the group last December after Iraqi forces drove its last remnants from the country.

Since then, human rights groups have accused Iraqi and other regional forces of inconsistencies in the judicial process and flawed trials leading to unfair convictions.

Iraq’s supreme judicial council said on Wednesday that criminal courts falling under the Nineveh Federal Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Mosul, had so far ruled on a total of 815 cases since the area was recaptured from Daesh.

“The statistics coming from the criminal courts show that 815 people have gone on trial and that 212 were sentenced to death. A further 150 were sentenced to life in prison,” said judiciary spokesman Judge Abdul-Sattar Al Birqdar.

It was not immediately clear how many, if any, of the death sentences had been already carried out.

“The vast majority of these rulings were against elements of the Daesh terrorist organisation who were proven to have committed crimes, and came after public trials conducted in accordance with the law. Defendants were afforded their rights,” Birqdar said.

Another 341 people were jailed for various terms and 112 were acquitted, he said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch released an 80-page report in December accusing Iraqi federal and Kurdish regional judiciaries of violating the rights of Daesh-linked suspects with flawed trials, arbitrary detentions under harsh conditions and broad prosecutions.</s>Iraqi forces backed by jets, drones and gunships attacked Mosul airport on Thursday in a key step in their four-month-old offensive to retake the city from the Islamic State group.

The disused airport commands access to the south of the city, which the jihadists seized in June 2014 and where their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Federal police and the interior ministry's Rapid Response units reached the walls of the airport compound, which lies on the west bank of the Tigris River that runs through the city, AFP correspondents reported.

"Right now we're on the southern edge of Mosul airport and the sugar factory, our troops are attacking it," said Hisham Abdul Kadhem, commander of the Rapid Response's Scorpion Regiment.

He said his forces and federal police controlled the southern and western sides of the airport.

"Engineers are starting to clear the roads and remove IEDs (improvised explosive devices)," he said, as an attack helicopter fired rockets at the sugar factory.

There was no sign that government forces had entered the airport yet but the regional command coordinating the battle said elite Counter-Terrorism Service forces also attacked the neighbouring Ghazlani military base, where some of them were stationed before IS seized the city in June 2014.

Control of the base and airport would set government forces up to enter Mosul neighbourhoods on the west bank of the Tigris, a month after declaring full control of the east bank.

All of the city's bridges across the river have been blown up.

The US-led coalition has played a key role in supporting Iraqi forces with air strikes and advisers on the ground, and on Thursday US forces in armoured vehicles were seen moving on the airport.

The American troops are not supposed to be doing the actual fighting but in recent weeks have got so close to the front that they have come under attack, coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said.

"They have come under fire at different times, they have returned fire at different times, in and around Mosul," Dorrian told reporters on Wednesday.

He declined to say if there had been any US casualties in the attacks, but an unnamed official later told CNN that several personnel had been evacuated from the battlefield.

The latest push to retake Mosul, the second city and the last stronghold of the jihadists in Iraq, was launched on Sunday and involves thousands of security personnel.

They started closing in on the airport four days ago. It is unclear how many jihadists are defending the airport but US officials said Monday that only around 2,000 remain in Mosul.

There are an estimated 750,000 civilians trapped on the city's west bank, which is a bit smaller than the east side but more densely populated.

It is home to the Old City and its narrow streets, which will make for a difficult terrain when Iraqi forces reach it because they will be impassable for some military vehicles.

The noose has for months now been tightening around Mosul and the living conditions for civilians are fast deteriorating.

Residents AFP has reached by phone spoke of dwindling food supplies forcing many families to survive on just one meal a day.

Medical workers say the weakest are beginning to die of the combined effect of malnutrition and the lack of medicines, which IS fighters are keeping for themselves.

A smaller than expected proportion of the east side's population fled when Iraqi forces stormed it nearly four months ago but the United Nations is bracing for a bigger exodus from the west.

It had said 250,000 people or more could flee their homes on the west bank and has scrambled to set up new displacement camps around the city.</s>Hundreds of Iraqis fleeing the besieged city of Mosul are checked by Iraqi special forces fearful of the threat posed by Islamic State, even in areas they control. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.</s>Fate of U.S. citizen with ties to Islamic State in hands of judge</s>The latest news of mass death sentence shocked the world; Iraqi courts have sentenced to death a total of more than 300 people, including many foreigners, for belonging to the Islamic State group, judicial sources reported Wednesday.

The suspects are being attempted by two courts, one near the former jihadist stronghold of Mosul in northern Iraq and another in Baghdad which is dealing notably with foreigners and women.

Since January in the capital, 103 foreign nationals have been condemned to death — including six Turks sentenced on Wednesday — and 185 to life in prison, according to a judicial source.

Most of the women sentenced were from Turkey and republics of the former Soviet Union.

In January, an Iraqi court condemned a German woman to death sentence after proving her guilty of belonging to Islamic State while on Tuesday a French woman was sentenced to life in prison.

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At the court in Tel Keif near Mosul, 212 people have been sentenced to death, 150 to life in prison and 341 to other jails terms, Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdel Sattar Bayraqdar said in a statement.

Iraq declared victory in December against Islamic State which at one point controlled a third of the country.

11 people accused of terrorism-related charges had been executed in Iraq, which according to New York-based Human Rights Watch is the world’s number fourth executioner ever, the justice ministry reported, on Monday.
An Iraqi judge hands a death sentence to an ISIL member who acted as a judge deciding on marriages in Mosul.