Senior Iraqi commander killed while fighting IS

A senior Iraqi commander has been killed by Islamic State group militants near the northern IS-held city of Mosul, Iraq's defence ministry said late on Tuesday.

Brigadier Ahmed Badr al-Luhaibi, the commander of Brigade 71st of Division 15, was killed by a sniper during an operation to retake a village south of Mosul.

The statement lauded Luhaibi as a "knight" and said his death would "increase our determination to clear" the entire province of Nineveh, where Mosul is the provincial capital of IS militants.

Mosul - Iraq's second-largest city - fell under IS control during the militants' June 2014 onslaught that captured large swathes of northern and western Iraq, as well as almost a third of neighbouring Syria.

The city, about 360km (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, also became the largest city in the group's self-declared caliphate established in the territories controlled by the militants.

Along with a major offensive to retake Fallujah, a city in western Anbar province, Iraqi troops have this week resumed small-scale operations to dislodge IS militants from areas to the south and southeast of Mosul.

In late March, the government forces launched a military operation aimed at clearing areas between Makmour and the adjacent Qayara areas outside of Mosul, to the east of the Tigris River, and to cut one of the supply lines to the nearby IS-held Shirqat area.

Retaking Mosul itself is not likely to come any time soon. It will be an enormous undertaking for the Iraqi troops, even backed by airstrikes from the US-led coalition and joined by pro-government fighters, mostly Shia militias.

Iraqi and US officials have refrained from giving a specific timeframe for a Mosul operation, saying it would take many months to prepare Iraq's still-struggling military.

Some of the US and Iraqi officials have said it may not even be possible to retake it this year, despite repeated vows by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Humanitarian crisis

On Tuesday, the UNHCR said fighting outside Mosul had displaced more than 14,000 Iraqis since March. Of that number, more than 8,000 people left from villages east of the Tigris, putting additional pressure on existing camps for refugees and the displaced.

Since April, 6,700 more Iraqis have crossed into Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province using local smuggling networks. Some of those refugees have managed to escape Mosul.

Frederic Cussigh, head of UNHCR's field response unit in the northern, semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region, warned that there were no safe routes for those escaping war.

The civilians and "families use secondary routes, mostly at night, crossing dangerous terrain", he said, adding that the UN refugee agency had reports of people "trapped, severely injured or killed in minefields on their way to safety".

The UNHCR warned that the eventual assault on Mosul could result in a massive displacement of about 600,000 people.

In Fallujah, the United Nations says about 50,000 civilians remain trapped inside the city, while about 42,000 people have fled since the military operation began in late May.

Aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council say the number of those who have fled Fallujah is closer to 30,000, lower than the UN estimate.

The conflict in Iraq has forced 3.3 million people to flee their homes. Iraq is also hosting up to 300,000 refugees who have fled the civil war in neighbouring Syria. Most are living in camps or informal settlements.