Human remains found in western Mosul industrial area

MOSUL, Iraq — A security source from the Nineveh Police Directorate and the Forensic Medicine Department said Tuesday that bone and skeletal remains belonging to an unidentified man were found in the industrial area of the Akab Valley, west of Mosul. Initial examinations indicated the remains date to the period of the 2017 Mosul liberation operation and earlier. The security source said the bones were transferred to the Forensic Medicine Department for identification, and that coordination had begun with relevant institutions in Baghdad for DNA analysis. Initial security assessments suggested the remains may belong to a member of ISIS, though formal identification procedures were still underway. Since Mosul's liberation from ISIS in late 2017, Civil Defense search-and-rescue teams and civil society organizations have regularly recovered bodies and bone fragments across the city. Some remains have been linked to ISIS members, while others have been identified as victims of the group or civilians killed during the military operations.