Baghdad. More than 2,000 Iraqis in the northern province of Nineveh have been executed by Islamic State militants controlling the area, the defense minister said on Friday in a recorded statement.

Ministry officials could not confirm when or how the deaths had occurred and Reuters was unable to immediately confirm the government’s claims.

Access is severely restricted in large parts of Iraq’s north and west, which Islamic State militants have controlled since sweeping across the Syrian border in mid-2014 in a bid to establish a caliphate.

Witnesses and sources at a morgue in Mosul, the capital of Nineveh, told Reuters that most of the executions reported on Friday had occurred over the past six months.

The majority of the victims, killed for common crimes like theft, had been buried earlier, but the bodies of journalists and former Iraqi police or soldiers were delivered to the morgue earlier on Friday, the sources said. They said IS had circulated lists containing the victims’ names.

“[Islamic State] assassinated in cold blood … 2,070 residents of Nineveh for … not cooperating with them,” Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi said in a video posted on the ministry’s website.

Interviews with residents in January revealed how Islamic State had created a police state strong enough to weather severe popular discontent in Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, which fell to the insurgents after Iraqi forces collapsed.

Parliament Speaker Saleem al-Jabouri condemned the reported executions on Facebook as “a historical crime of genocide.”

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the killings came in response to Islamic State’s losses in Anbar, where pro-government forces launched a campaign last month to roll back the seizure of Ramadi and other areas.

Baghdad and its allies have had to modify expectations of swiftly routing IS there after confronting the reality of a weakened fighting force, sectarian sensitivities in the predominately Sunni province, and political tensions including an Iranian-Western fight for influence.

Reuters

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Kabul. More than 40 police cadets and civilians were killed and wounded in a suicide bomb attack late on Friday at a police academy in the Afghan capital, the interior ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place amid a wave of deadly bombings in Kabul that killed dozens and wounded hundreds.

The North Atlantic Trade Organization-led mission in Afghanistan said on Saturday that eight civilian contractors were killed along with one of its service members in an insurgent attack on a camp in Kabul.

The attack on Camp Integrity near the main airport was part of a wave of bombings across the Afghan capital on Friday that killed dozens of Afghan police and civilians.

The names and nationalities of the foreign military and civilian contractors killed were not released.

Reuters

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Zurich. The head of North American football’s governing body Concacaf has been fired following the FBI investigation into corruption allegations at FIFA, a source and his lawyer said.

“Enrique Sanz was terminated from his employment with Concacaf this week,” a source close to the confederation said. Sanz’s lawyer, Joseph DeMaria, confirmed Colombia-born Sanz had been dismissed.

The regional body for North and Central America and the Caribbean had put Sanz on “indefinite leave” following the indictment of the body’s president Jeffrey Webb in May and he had been “provisionally suspended” from all football-related activities by FIFA in June.

Sanz is the second Concacaf general secretary to depart after a corruption scandal. His predecessor Chuck Blazer, who held the position from 1990 until 2011, was banned from football for life by FIFA last month after he was indicted and pleaded guilty to charges including accepting bribes and kickbacks.

Through a 2013 US plea agreement, Blazer become a cooperating witness in the US investigation, which has engulfed FIFA and pressured the governing body’s president, Sepp Blatter, to step down.

Reuters

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Beijing. Police in China have accused a prominent human rights lawyer of inciting subversion and creating a disturbance, her lawyer said on Friday, paving the way for possible formal charges.

Citing the need to buttress national security and stability, President Xi Jinping’s administration has tightened government control over almost every aspect of civil society since 2012.

Rights lawyer Wang Yu is one of more than 50 lawyers and activists who have been detained by authorities since last month, as part of a crackdown against civil society that has alarmed foreign rights groups and Western governments.

Wang works at the Fengrui Law Firm, which has represented high-profile clients such as ethnic Uighur dissident Ilham Tohti.

Police in the in the northern city of Tianjin accused Wang of the crimes of “inciting subversion of state power” and “causing a disturbance,” her lawyer, Li Yuhan, told Reuters.

Li said police told her that she could not meet her client because it was a case that “endangered state security.”

“I said ‘this is all nonsense,’” Li said by telephone. “The authorities put out the video of her saying that: ‘You all are thugs.’ Why not release the full video? And even if what she said was extreme, is that considered a crime?”

Calls to the Tianjin police’s news department seeking comment went unanswered.

Last month, state broadcaster CCTV showed footage of Wang scolding officials in a court as “thugs.” Activists said the release of the footage was a smear campaign.

Li said police had declined to tell her where Wang was, in violation of the law, and had not given her any details of the case.

Police investigators will now have to decide whether they have enough evidence against Wang to submit a request to the prosecutors’ office for her formal arrest and charging, Li said.

The detentions and questionings come on the heels of a months-long campaign in state media to discredit human rights activists for undermining national stability by using social media.

Reuters

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Bamako. At least one person was killed in an attack early on Friday by unidentified gunmen on a hotel in central Mali frequented by United Nations peacekeepers in the West African nation, a witness and a military spokesman said.

The raid targeted a hotel on the road to the airport in Sevare, which services the larger town of Mopti. The body of one victim was visible in front of the building, the two sources said.

A second military source said two people had been killed.

“It started before 8 a.m. [local time]. I saw a body in front of the hotel. It was a white man but I don’t know his nationality,” said airport worker Moussa Diallo.

The hotel was believed to be lodging nationals from South Africa, France and Ukraine, Malian military spokesperson Souleymane Dembele said in text message.

“The [Malian army] has encircled the zone and is attempting to enter the hotel,” he wrote.

A UN source, who asked not to be named, said that the attackers remained in the hotel and that gunfire continued to be heard three hours after the initial assault.

The UN force, known as Minuma, was deployed in the wake of an Islamist militant occupation of Mali’s desert north. A French-led military operation drove the insurgents, some of them with links to al Qaeda, from cities and towns in the north, but remnants of the Islamist fighters continue to carry out attacks.

Reuters

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Patna, India. Authorities in an east Indian state have made it mandatory for candidates contesting village elections to have a toilet in their home as part of a move to improve sanitation in the country, a senior official said.

The Bihar state assembly on Wednesday passed an act stating that candidates must confirm that they have a toilet inside their home in order to be nominated for the 2016 polls.

“Our objective is to improve sanitary conditions at the micro level and end the disgusting practice of open defecation which is the root cause of many ills,” Binod Prasad Yadav, Bihar’s Panchayati Raj (village governance) Minister, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Less than a third of India’s 1.2 billion people have access to toilets and more than 186,000 children under five die every year from diarrheal diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation, according to the charity WaterAid.

A United Nations report in May 2014 said half of India’s population still practice open defecation  ̶  putting them at risk of cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid.

India’s central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, has made building toilets a priority and he has pledged that every household will have a toilet by 2019.

Bihar, ruled by the opposition Janata Dal United party, is the second state after Gujarat to have passed such legislation ahead of next year’s village and district council elections.

“With such a huge number of candidates contesting elections… the move will lead to a toilet construction rush which will leave a positive impact on the society,” Yadav said.

“How can you ask the people to construct toilets when you yourself don’t have one?”

Reuters

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Cairo. A suicide bomb attack inside a mosque in a local security forces headquarters in Abha city in south-west Saudi Arabia killed 13 people and wounded nine on Thursday, the Saudi state news agency reported, citing an interior ministry spokesman.

State television had earlier reported a death toll of 17.

The mosque in Abha was part of the local headquarters of a state security unit called the Special Emergency Force, the spokesman was cited as saying.

Of those killed, 10 were members of the force, while three were workers in the compound. They were praying when the bomber struck within their ranks, he said.

In May, two suicide bomb attacks on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia were claimed by Islamic State. The first on a mosque in Qatif in the east of the kingdom killed 21 worshipers, and another four died in a bombing a week later at a mosque in Dammam.

Another bombing claimed by Islamic State on a Shiite mosque in Kuwait in June killed 27 people.

Reuters

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Madrid. One of the world’s greatest freedivers, Russia’s Natalia Molchanova, is feared dead after disappearing during a dive off Spain’s Balearic Islands, officials said on Wednesday.

Molchanova, 53, went missing off the island of Formentera on Sunday and Spain’s police and maritime rescue agency said they had now called off the search for her.

Freedivers dive without scuba equipment, sometimes to great depths, relying on their ability to hold their breath.

A statement issued by Molchanova’s family and international freediving federation AIDA, published on the diving website Deeper Blue, said Molchanova became separated from her companions while diving to around 30 to 40 meters when she may have got into strong underwater currents.

Her friends raised the alarm and the Civil Guard police and sea rescue searched for her over the next few days without finding any trace.

“Search operations have now been suspended,” a spokeswoman for the maritime rescue agency said.

According to the statement, Molchanova is the most decorated competitive freediver in the world, setting 41 world records, and is a 23-time world champion freediver.

She could hold her breath for nine minutes and dive to a depth of 101 meters using a fin, it said.

The AIDA website lists her as holding the world record in all but one of eight freediving disciplines, most recently setting a mark of 71 meters in May in a discipline involving swimming down and up without using fins or changing ballast.

She was the president of the Freediving Federation of Russia and author of two freediving training handbooks. She leaves a son Alexey, also a world champion free diver, and daughter Oksana.

Reuters

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Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed on Thursday that a Boeing 777 wing segment discovered in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion is from the missing Flight MH370, the first real breakthrough in the search for the plane that disappeared 17 months ago.

“Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370,” Najib said in a televised statement.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared in March last year enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board.

Investigators in France ascertained that the barnacle-covered debris, a 2-2.5 meter wing surface known as a flaperon, belonged to MH370 just days after Malaysia identified it as being part of the same model, a Boeing 777.

The confirmation brings some closure to the relatives of those on board but does not shed any light on what happened to the airliner.

“I would like to assure all those affected by this tragedy that the government of Malaysia is committed to do everything within our means to find out the truth of what happened,” Najib said.

The plane piece washed up last Wednesday on Reunion, a volcanic island of 850,000 people that is a full part of France, located in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar.

Reunion is roughly 3,700 kilometers from the broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean off Australia where search efforts have focused, but officials and experts said currents could have carried wreckage that way, thousands of kilometers from where the plane is thought to have crashed.

Malaysia Airlines said in a separate statement that the relatives of passengers and the crew had been informed.

The airline said the discovery was a major breakthrough in resolving the disappearance of MH370.

“We expect and hope that there would be more objects to be found which would be able to help resolve this mystery,” it added.

The discovery of the flaperon led to a frantic search for more possible wreckage from the missing plane in the island.

Reuters

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Norwegian team celebrates at end of their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship final match against Germany at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on August 1, 2015. Germany won the first place in the category of women and Norway won the first place in the men’s category. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Norwegian team shout harangues before the start of their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship final match against Germany at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on August 1, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Germany’s Johanna Kohl in start line during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship final match against Norway at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on August 1, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Norwegian team applauds during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship final match against Germany at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on August 1, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Venezuela’s Andrea D’Amico, center, gives instructions to his teammates during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match against Germany at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Australia’s team swims at the start of their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match between against Norway at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Sweden’s Àndreas Corlin, left, gives instructions to his teammates during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match against the US at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

US Nicholas Smith, left, swims during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match against Sweden at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Sweden’s Sebastian Brandstrom, left, stares at his rivals out of the water during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match against the US at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Germany’s Lukas Tadda, left, exchanges the teams’ flag with Venezuela’s Andrea D’Amico prior to their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

US Mateo Galeano, left, figths for the ball with Niklas Nihlen (Bottom), Jacob Thun (Center) and Joakim Nilson of Sweden during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Sweden’s Joakim Nilsson, bottom, fights for the ball with US Bryan Mosquera during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Venezuela’s Jose Ramos, right, fights for the ball with Germany’s Andi Weibenberger during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Sweden’s Andreas Bergenholtz swims during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match against the US at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Germany’s Christian Staubach, left figths for the ball with Venezuela’s Thelmo Rodriguez during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Venezuela’s Julio Martinez, top, figths for the ball with Germany’s Ralf Gandlau (bottom) during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on July 28, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Norway’s Marius Skare, bottom, figths for the ball with Germany’s Markus Heckrath (Top) during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship final match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on August 1, 2015. Germany won the first place in the category of women and Norway won the first place in the men’s category. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Germany’s Ralf Gandlau, left, figths for the ball with Norway’s Marius Skare during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship final match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on August 1, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Germany’s Ralf Gandlau, fights for the ball with Norway’s Marius Skare during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship final match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on August 1, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

Norway’s team, right, members shake hands with Germany’s team during their 10th CMAS Underwater Rugby World Championship final match at the Alberto Galindo Herrera swimming pool in Cali, Colombia, on August 1, 2015. (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

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