Iraq's Interior Ministry said it launched an investigation into allegations of human rights violations perpetrated by its forces fighting the Daesh group in Mosul.

The allegations were first reported by Germany's Der Spiegel magazine last weekend. The report, authored by an Iraqi photographer reportedly embedded with the police unit, claims he witnessed killing, torture and rape of Daesh suspects.

The ministry's spokesman, Brig-Gen Saad Maan, said on Tuesday that the newspaper report identifies the Emergency Response Division - an elite unit that answers to the Interior Ministry and has been closely backed by the US-led coalition in the Mosul fight - as the perpetrator of the abuses. Maan did not give a time frame for the investigating but said "legal measures will be applied ... against wrongdoers".

An officer with the ERD said his unit is not authorised to comment and that all inquiries should be directed to the Interior Ministry

Source: Khaleej Times