IS mortars kill 9 civilians in Mosul

Baghdad: At least nine civilians were killed and another 17 wounded on Saturday after the Islamic State jihadist group shelled mortars at two neighbourhoods east of the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Nineveh provincial council member Hossam Eddin al-Abbar said that IS intensively shelled the al-Zuhur and al-Qudis neighborhoods in Mosul, Efe news agency reported.

Al-Abbar added that the Iraqi forces failed to move the wounded to hospitals as IS militants control al-Qudis neighbourhood, while al-Zuhur remains under the control of Iraqi forces.

Over the past few days, the Iraqi forces-held eastern neighbourhoods of Mosul have been targeted by mortar shells, as well as other indiscriminate attacks carried out by the IS.

The Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces launched an offensive on October 17 to free Mosul and the entire province of Nineveh from the IS, which conquered large swathes of northern Iraq in 2014.