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Rights group accuses Iraqi Kurds of destroying Arab homes

Associated Press
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FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, file photo, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters gather near a frontline during fighting with Islamic State militants in Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq. 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. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, file photo, a Kurdish Peshmerga fighter looks at Islamic State militant positions during heavy fighting in Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq. 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. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File) (The Associated Press)

Displaced Iraqi boys, who fled from Mosul with their families, carry food and other aid supplies at a camp for internally displaced people in Hassan Sham, east of Mosul, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016. The urban landscape inside Mosul proper makes defense easier for the Islamic State group, eager to hold on to the last major Iraqi stronghold of their self-styled caliphate. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) (The Associated Press)

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.