ISIS kills 284 men and boys in Mosul as Iraqi, U.S. troops approach

Iraqi Kurdish forces who are part of the effort to retake Mosul
(Image credit: Marwan Ibrahim/Getty Images)

Islamic State militants rounded up and murdered 284 men and boys on Thursday and Friday in Mosul, Iraq, an intelligence source told CNN, as Iraqi and American forces continue to make their approach to retake the town. Mosul is the last major city ISIS controls in Iraq, and those killed in this mass slaughter were previously used as human shields by ISIS terrorists attempting to retain territory in the area. CNN's source says all the victims were shot and buried in a mass grave at a former university.

On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter made an unannounced visit to Iraq to monitor Mosul's progress. Carter's trip marks the sixth day of the campaign and includes plans to meet with Iraqi officials to assess the situation.

In better news greeting the secretary on the ground, Iraqi forces on Saturday successfully reclaimed a village outside Mosul that is predominantly populated by Iraq's persecuted Christian minority. The village was under ISIS control since 2014.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.