The Iraqi Prime Minister’s office said a unit of its security forces had committed abuses against civilians during an offensive to oust Islamic State insurgents from the City of Mosul reports Reuters.

 The statement was in response to the conclusion of an investigation into a report by German newspaper Der Spiegel that documented evidence of torture taking place in the Iraqi Emergency Response Division (ERD).

The United Nations hopes to restart peace talks on Syria in September said the UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura on Thursday.

The Special Envoy said he and planned a brief round of UN diplomacy with opposition forces for mid-September.

Mr Mistura added that he hoped to restart further talks in Riyadh with three opposition delegations to understand the ground realities reports Reuters.

Stressing the importance of international actors to encourage the Syrian government to participate, he said,

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on Tuesday for a Libyan military commander who is accused of being responsible for summary executions.

In a statement, the ICC said it "issued a warrant of arrest for Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf al-Werfalli, allegedly responsible for murder as a war crime in the context of the non-international armed conflict in Libya."

The prosecution has pointed to video footage showing Mr Al Werfalli ordering and participating in the executions, accusing him of taking part in 7 rounds of executions, killing 33 people. 

The International Criminal Court ruled on Thursday that the Malian man responsible for destroying the Timbuktu shrine was liable for 2.7 million euroes in reparations for the damage caused.

Amad al-Faqi al-Mahdi was sentenced last year for 9 years after being found guilty of war crimes over destruction of 10 shrines and holy sites in Timbuktu.

The judges ordered that the victims be paid "individual, collective and symbolic" reparations. 

However, acknowledging that Mr al Mahdi, who is currently in jail, is not able to pay this sum, the court asked the ICC's Trust Fund for Victims to do so. 

Iraq is working with the United Kingdom to pass a resolution calling for an international investigation into crimes against humanity committed by Islamic State at the Untied Nations Security Council reports Reuters.

In a formal letter the UK mission to the United Nations Iraq’s foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, requested an international investigation into crimes against humanity to be mandated, stating,

“We request assistance of the international community to get benefited from international expertise to criminalise Daesh terrorist entity.”

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, threatened to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal within hours if the United States continued to impose new sanctions.

Speaking in a televised address Mr Rouhani, said US President Donald Trump’s actions showed that he was an unreliable partner not just for Iran but US allies as well.

Accusing the US of breaking the nuclear agreement (JCPOA), he said,

“in recent months the world has witnessed that the US, in addition to its constant and repetitive breaking of its promises in the JCPOA, has ignored several other global agreements and shown its allies that the US is neither a good partner nor a reliable negotiating party.”

A court in Kosovo has detained a Kosovo Albanian for allegedly working with Serbian troops and committing war crimes in 1999.

Agim Sahitaj has been remanded for one month, after claims that we worked with Serbian troops in April 1999 as they “killed, wounded, beat and harassed Kosovo Albanian civilians, looted their possessions and forcibly expelled them from their homes,” reports Balkan Insight.

The perpetrator was allegedly uniformed and armed at the time.

A Iraqi military unit that was trained by the United States is linked to alleged war crimes in Mosul, where it allegedly executed several prisoners, states Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Human Rights Watch called on the US government to “suspend all assistance and support to the 16th Division pending Iraq’s full investigation of the allegations and appropriate prosecutions”.

Troops from that division are accused of executing several dozen prisoners, including a young boy.

Three bombs have been detonated in the city of Maiduguri, Nigeria, on Tuesday killing at least 30 people. Over 80 people are thought to be injured. 

The attacks are believed to have been carried out by Boko Haram. However, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. 

The first attack took place at a market in Maiduguri, with a female fighter detonating a device which killed herself and at least 27 others. The other two attacks, including one at a refugee camp, are also reported to have been caused by female fighters detonating explosive belts. 

In an open letter to the US president, Donald Trump on Tuesday, the Taliban called for the removal of all US troops from Afghanistan and urged him to interact "generously" with the country. 

"It seems to be a historical mistake on part of the previous administrations to have dispatched American youth for the slaughter of Afghans. However, as a responsible American president, you need to study the mistakes of your predecessors and prevent death and injury to American forces in Afghanistan,"the letter read. 

"Everyone now understands that the main driver of war in Afghanistan is foreign occupation."