{"id":155243,"date":"2025-08-18T08:17:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T08:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/155243\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T08:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T08:17:12","slug":"iraqi-officials-begin-excavation-of-mass-grave-near-mosul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/155243\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraqi officials begin excavation of mass grave near Mosul"},"content":{"rendered":"

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) \u2014 Iraqi officials have begun the excavation of what is believed to be a mass grave left behind by the Islamic State extremist group<\/a> during its rampage across the country a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Local authorities are working with the judiciary, forensic investigations, Iraq\u2019s Martyrs\u2019 Foundation, and the directorate of mass graves to carry out the excavation<\/a> of the site of a sink hole in al-Khafsa, south of the northern city of Mosul, the state-run Iraqi News Agency reported Sunday.<\/p>\n

Ahmad Qusay al-Asady, head of the Martyrs Foundation\u2019s mass graves excavation department, told The Associated Press that his team began work at Khasfa on Aug. 9 at the request of Nineveh province\u2019s Gov. Abdulqadir al-Dakhil.<\/p>\n

The operation is initially limited to gathering visible human remains and surface evidence while preparing for a full exhumation that officials say will require international support.<\/p>\n

After an initial 15 days of work, the foundation\u2019s Mosul teams will build a database and start collecting DNA samples from families of suspected victims. <\/p>\n

Al-Asady explained that laboratory processing and a DNA database must come first to ensure proper identification. Full exhumations can only proceed once specialized assistance is secured to navigate the site\u2019s hazards, including sulfur water and unexploded ordnance.<\/p>\n

Khasfa is \u201ca very complicated site,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Based on unverified accounts from witnesses and families and other unofficial testimonies, authorities estimate that thousands of bodies could be buried there, he said.<\/p>\n

Scores of mass graves containing thousands of bodies of people believed to have been killed by the extremist group have been found in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n

At its peak, IS ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom in Iraq and Syria and was notorious for its brutality. It beheaded civilians and enslaved and raped thousands of women from the Yazidi community, one of Iraq\u2019s oldest religious minorities.<\/p>\n

The group was defeated in Iraq in July 2017, when Iraqi forces captured the northern city of Mosul. Three months later, it suffered a major blow when Kurdish forces captured the Syrian northern city of Raqqa, which was the group\u2019s de-facto capital. The war against IS officially ended in March 2019, when U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces captured the eastern Syrian town of Baghouz, which was the last sliver of land the extremists controlled.<\/p>\n

Rabah Nouri Attiyah, a lawyer who has worked on more than 70 cases of missing people in Nineveh, told the AP that information he obtained from the foundation and different Iraqi courts during his investigations points to Khasfa as \u201cthe largest mass grave in modern Iraqi history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al-Asady, however, said investigators \u201ccannot confirm yet if it is the largest mass grave\u201d to be found in Iraq, \u201cbut according to the size of the space, we estimate it to be one of the largest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attiyah said roughly 70% of the human remains at Khasfa are believed to belong to Iraqi army and police personnel, with other victims including Yazidis. <\/p>\n

He said he has interviewed numerous eyewitnesses from the area who saw IS fighters bring people there by bus and kill them. \u201cMany of them were decapitated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Attiyah\u2019s own uncle and cousin were police officers killed by IS, and he is among those hoping to identify and recover the remains of loved ones. <\/p>\n

Testimonies and witness statements, as well as findings from other mass graves in Nineveh, indicate that most of the military, police and other security forces personnel killed by IS are expected to be found at Khasfa, along with Yazidis from Sinjar and Shiite victims from Tal Afar, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IRBIL, Iraq (AP) \u2014 Iraqi officials have begun the excavation of what is believed to be a mass…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":155244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[90591,57,4785,41766,556,63644,2936,50,90592,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-155243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-ahmad-qusay-al-asady","9":"tag-general-news","10":"tag-iraq","11":"tag-iraq-government","12":"tag-islam","13":"tag-islamic-state-group","14":"tag-law-enforcement","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-tal-afar","17":"tag-world","18":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115048785249636291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}