GLOBAL ECONOMY

The Latest: Suicide car bombs slow Iraq's Mosul advance

Associated Press
Published | Updated

A Nineveh Plain Protection Units, or NPU, fighter inspects the interior of a church damaged by Islamic State fighters during their occupation of Qaraqosh, east of Mosul, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016. Qaraqosh, the biggest Christian town on the Nineveh plains in Iraq's north, fell to the Islamic State group in 2014 and was recently retaken by Iraqi government forces. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) (The Associated Press)

Displaced Iraqi citizens who fled from Mosul, wait to receive aid and food 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)

The Latest on the Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul (all times local):

Noon

Iraqi forces trying to advance further into Mosul are battling waves of car bombs sent by the Islamic State group.

Iraqi special forces Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi said Sunday that "there are so many civilian cars and any one of them could be a bomb."

Iraqi forces say they have cleared the neighborhoods of Qadisiya and Zahra and are now planning to move deeper into the city. They are building sand berms and road blocks to prevent car bombs from breaching the front lines.

Iraqi forces pushed into Mosul earlier this month but have struggled to advance in the face of heavy resistance from militants in neighborhoods still populated by civilians.

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8 a.m.

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.