Mosul offensive takes toll as Iraq casualties soar

The scope of the toll the six-week old battle for Mosul has taken on Iraqi forces emerged Dec. 1, with U.N. figures showing that around 2,000 had been killed in fighting last month alone, while 926 civilians were also killed in fighting in the past month.

While high casualty tolls were expected for what has been Iraq's toughest battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to date, few figures had been released.

The United Nations' mission in Iraq released monthly casualty figures for November that showed 1,959 members of the Iraqi forces were killed just last month and 450 others wounded.

The U.N. toll includes members of the army, police engaged in combat, the Kurdish peshmerga, interior ministry forces and pro-government paramilitaries.

The U.N. statement also said at least 926 civilians were killed, bringing to 2,885 the number of Iraqis killed in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict last month.

"The casualty figures are staggering, with civilians accounting for a significant number of the victims," the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, Jan Kubis, said.

The U.S.-led coalition assisting anti-ISIL forces in Iraq and Syria admitted Dec. 1 to "inadvertently" killing 54 civilians in both countries between March and October.

"Although the coalition makes extraordinary efforts to strike military targets in a manner that minimizes the risk of civilian casualties, in some cases casualties are unavoidable," the coalition said in a statement.

A July 18 strike that killed 100 ISIL fighters also killed as many as 24 civilians, the statement added.

Officials from the Kurdistan region's peshmerga ministry said more than 1,600 peshmerga fighters were killed since ISIL took over...