A senior Iraqi military commander has been killed while fighting Islamic State militants in the country's north, defence officials said.
The Joint Military Command said Brigadier Ahmed Badr al-Luhaibi, the commander of Brigade 71st of Division 15, was killed by sniper fire during an operation to retake a village to the south of the IS-held city of Mosul.
It said his death "will increase our determination to clear" the entire province of Nineveh, where Mosul is the provincial capital.
Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, has been under IS control for two years.
Along with a major offensive to retake Fallujah, a city in western Anbar province, Iraqi troops have this week resumed small-scale operations to dislodge IS militants from areas to the south and south-east of Mosul.
