Mosul dam 'targeted in airstrikes'

Iraq’s Mosul dam, held by the Islamic State group, is being targeted in airstrikes, residents there say.

The residents say the airstrikes hit today.

The Islamic State group seized the dam on the Tigris River on August 7 as part of their offensive which has seized large parts of Iraq.

The residents near the dam say the airstrikes killed militants, but that could not be confirmed.

Meanwhile, survivors of an attack on a northern village in Iraq say militants from the Islamic State group killed more than 80 Yazidi men there, officials said.

The officials, a Yazidi politician and an official with Kurdish security forces, said the attack happened on Friday afternoon in the village of Kocho. Both said they based their information on the account of survivors.

Kocho is in an area held by the Islamic State group where journalists cannot operate.

Yazidi politician Mahma Khali said that Islamic State group fighters besieged the village for several days and gave its Yazidi residents a deadline to convert to Islam.

Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for Kurdish security forces, says the women and children of Kocho were captured in the attack.