GENEVA — The U.N. human rights office reports Iraqi civilians are increasingly being used as pawns by Islamic State militants in their battle for Mosul. The agency says it has received credible reports of hundreds of executions, mass abductions, and the use of civilians as human shields. The agency reports Islamic State militants have been forcing […]
GAZIANTEP, TURKEY—U.S.-led coalition warplanes carried out intense airstrikes Tuesday on Raqqa, the de facto Syrian capital of the Islamic State group, a monitoring group said, continuing days of air-raids that appear to be aimed at demoralizing jihadist fighters before an offensive by Kurdish-led forces on villages to the north of the city. The airstrikes appear […]
Syrian activists say U.S.-led coalition airstrikes hit an oil refinery in northern Syria on Sunday, killing 30 people. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which uses a network of sources throughout Syria to track violence there, said the Islamic State group was operating the refinery, and that the dead included both militants and workers. […]