Iraq Uncovers Mass Grave of IS Victims Near Mosul
Iraqi authorities have begun excavating a mass grave believed to contain thousands of victims of the Islamic State (IS) near Mosul, officials confirmed on Sunday. The operation, launched on August 10, focuses on the Khasfa site, where surface-level digging has already unearthed human skulls, according to project director Ahmed al-Assadi. Located outside Mosul—the former capital of IS’s self-declared “caliphate”—Khasfa is thought to be Iraq’s largest mass grave. A 2018 UN report estimated it could hold at least 4,000 bodies, with thousands more possibly buried in the 150-metre-deep sinkhole. Assadi said victims include Iraqi soldiers executed by IS, members of the Yazidi minority, and Mosul residents killed during the jihadists’ rule. In one of the worst massacres, IS executed 280 people in a single day in 2016, many of them Interior Ministry employees. Water erosion has damaged many of the remains, […]