UN okays Iraq probe mission

The 47 members of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) decided on Monday to send an emergency mission to Iraq to investigate crimes committed by militants of the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (IS).

The special emergency session in Geneva was called by Iraq and France and supported by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, China, US, Russia, France and the UK.

"We are facing a terrorist monster. Acts by the ISIS threaten not only Iraq but the whole region and the world," Iraq's human rights minister, Mohammed Shia Al Sudani, told the council on Monday, referring to the IS by one of its other names.

The UNHCR, in its resolution, condemned "in the strongest possible terms systematic violations and abuses" and said that the IS' actions may amount to "war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The UN rights organization's deputy chief Flavia Pasieri said that reports from the region indicated "acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale." She listed abductions, slavery, sexual violence and targeting of ethnic and religious minorities as some of the crimes the IS was perpetrating against common people in Iraq.

The IS has seized control over large swathes of northern and western Iraq since June this year and has occupied a part of Syria which it has declared as its "caliphate." IS militants have been accused of targeting Christians, Shiite Muslims and Turkmen in Iraq.

Last month, 300 women and girls from the Yazidi community were reported to have been kidnapped by the IS and later sold to jihadist fighters.

The group recently released a video showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley, further raising international concerns on the global impact of the crisis. Iraq's military and Kurdish forces are receiving assistance from western countries to counter the IS' growing influence and regain areas under its control.

mg/kms (dpa, AFP, Reuters)