Fazel al-Qarawi, a human rights specialist, told Arabic-language al-Forat news agency on Tuesday that experts from the Iraqi Establishment of Martyrs and Health Ministry found 80 bodies inside former dictator Saddam Husseins palace compound in Tikrit, located 140 kilometers northwest of the capital Baghdad.
The remains of the victims bodies, which were found submerged in Tigris River under tree branches,were brought out by a group of divers and transferred to the provincial departmentofforensicsciences for DNA testing.
On June 12, 2014, Daesh terrorists killed around 1,700 Iraqi air force cadets after kidnapping them from Camp Speicher, a former US base. There were reportedly around 4,000 unarmed cadets in the camp when it came under attack by Daesh militants.
Following the abductions, the attackers took the victims to the complex of presidential palaces and killed them. The terrorists also threw some of the bodies into the river.
The massacre was filmed by Daesh and broadcaston social media.
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An image taken from a video posted by Daesh militants shows the terrorists executing captured Iraqi soldiers from Camp Speicher near Tikrit, northern Iraq, on June 12, 2014.[/caption]An investigation committee later revealed that 57 members of Saddam Husseins Baath Party aided Takfiri Daesh terrorists in the massacre.
On August 21, 2016, Iraqi judiciary officials hung 36 men convicted of involvement in the carnage.
Tikrit was recaptured from Daesh in March 2015.During clean-up operations in the northern part of the city, Iraqi forces found the location of the 2014 carnage.
Iraqi armed forces are now engaged in a large-scale military operation in Mosul to rid the terror group of its last remaining stronghold in the Arab country.
Meanwhile, the commander of Nineveh Liberation Operation says tens of Daesh Takfiris have been killed in a string of airstrikes inside and on the outskirts of Mosul, located some 400kilometers north ofBaghdad.
Lieutenant GeneralAbdul Amir Yarallah said on Tuesday that the military aircraft bombarded purported Daesh positions in the eastern and western quarters of Mosul, besides the city of Tal Afar, situated 63 kilometers west of Mosul, killing 80 militants.
Iraqi Federal Police forces also killed 93 Daesh members, when they targeted seven vehicles belonging to the terrorists in the southern part of Mosul.
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Iraqi Special Forces patrol the al-Quds neighborhood of Mosul after recapturing it from Takfiri Daesh militants on January 3, 2017. (Photo by AFP)[/caption]Government forces located and destroyed eight Daesh positions, a command center and a bomb-making workshop in the same region as well.
Furthermore, Commander of Federal Police Forces Lieutenant General RaedShaker Jawdatsaid Iraqi surveillance drones have detected a mass exodus of Daesh militants from al-Wahdaneighborhood in easternMosul, and their movement towards al-Baath al-Muhazi area on the southeastern flank of the city.
Iraqi army soldiers, supported by pro-government Popular Mobilization Units (commonly known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Shaabi) and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, launched a joint operationon October 17 to retake Mosul from Daesh terrorists.
A total of 129,642 civilians have been displaced from Mosul and neighboring areas ever since the start of the operations, according to figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Tuesday.
