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The authenticity of the video is currently unclear but it appears to show Islamic State jihadis, known for their improvisations on the battlefield, have wrapped the tiny animals torso with explosives before sending it across the front line.

The horrifying video was apparently uploaded online by fighters with the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Units.

The PMU, or Al-Hashd Al-Sha'abi, is a group of militia, brought together and state-sponsored to battle with jihadis in Iraq.

In 2014 the group was incorporated into the countrys armed forces to help fight on the battlefield as major cities were overtaken by terrorists.

Three PMU fighters crouch over the small animal in the video, one resting a knife on the ground as they speak to the camera about the find.

They tell the camera the dog is strapped to four bottles, likely filled with shrapnel.

Accoring to the men, if detonated it could kill three of four people.

PMU

The trio claimed the dog was sent around the corner to where they were positioned.

PMU members said the dog was fitted with explosives which are remotely detonated

Express.co.uk is working on verifying the claims in the footage.

PMU

What was this animals crime? Even animals, ISIS booby traps them and send them out against us

PMU

ISIS has just sent an innocent animal with explosives wrapped around it to our position to try and blow our troops up, the group said.

We have disarmed the explosives and taken them off.

(The) Animal is being sent to the Baghdad Zoo for a nice break from the war zone and well away from ISIS fighters trying to blow animals up for their sick war.

"What was this animals crime? Even animals, ISIS booby traps them and send them out against us.

"They have no morals, they will never defeat us those dirty ISIS fighters."

Daily Express

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With its ears down and its back arched the dog appears to be terrified.

The PMU did not reveal its position although it is believe the footage may have been shot outside Mosul.

In recent weeks the city has been liberated from the east as coalition backed forces push ISIS back and gain ground.

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ISIS strap suicide vests to PUPPIES in horror footage of sick front line bomb tactic - Express.co.uk

A member of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitaries walks next to a sinkhole in the village of Athbah, south of Mosul. (AFP)

The sinkhole that could be the largest mass grave in Iraq's latest conflict is barely visible from the road, nothing more than a small depression behind a desert ridge near Mosul.

The place known as the Khasfah (an Arabic word for a crack or a hole that opens up in the ground) was once a local curiosity, a natural formation that many locals believe was caused by a meteorite.

But the Islamic State group transformed it into a "place of death" after capturing the area in June 2014, using it as an execution site and a mass grave where they disposed of victims, according to local residents.

"They would bring them blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs. The Khasfah would be in front of them, they would make them kneel down, shoot them in the head and push them in," said Mohamed Yassin, 56, a resident of the nearby town of Hammam al-Alil.

A retired soldier, he said he saw people being executed at the site on several occasions after IS captured the area in June 2014.

He was in the area regularly, transporting oil from a site just metres away, and said he saw executions there at least six times.

Most of those killed, he said, were policeman, soldiers or government employees, judged guilty for their association with the Iraqi state.

"People became afraid of the place, it became a place of death, a place where you'd be executed."

Hussein Khalaf Hilal, 73, was taken to the Khasfah by IS fighters who accused him of violating their rules by treating people with religious folk medicine.

"They came to the house, they blindfolded me, tied my hands behind my back and took me away in a car with blacked out windows," he told AFP.

"They took me there because they wanted me to pledge allegiance, to frighten me."

He said IS fighters marched people into the pit after forcing them to take pills.

"They would line them up, ten by ten, 15 by 15," he said.

He declined to pledge allegiance, but asked for a chance to consider the matter, and was taken to prison instead.

The stories of mass executions match what Belkis Wille, senior Iraq researcher for Human Rights Watch, has heard for months.

"I started hearing about this location about a year ago, in interviews I was doing with people who had fled IS control," she said.

They told her about people who had been executed at the sinkhole, and prisoners whose IS guards told them they were taking detainees to the Khasfah to be killed.

HRW examined satellite imagery that suggested the sinkhole was filling up, and local residents told AFP that IS had piled rusted car parts and shipping containers into it, before bulldozing earth on top.

A month after the area was taken from IS, the once-cavernous hole now extends just a few metres down for most of its surface.

In the centre, there is a smaller, deeper hole, with the carcass of a vehicle lying on top.

The area is strewn with IEDs, both inside and around its perimeter, and is in territory patrolled by Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitaries.

"This is a place where you feel sadness," said Hashed fighter Abu Ahmed Hassani.

"You think about all the Iraqis who have been executed, from all the sects," he said.

"They killed children, they killed old people, women, men."

And the Khasfah is still claiming lives.

On Saturday, a reporter from Kurdish channel Rudaw and three Hashed members were killed at the mouth of its central hole, when an IED detonated.

No exact figures yet exist for the number of bodies that could be buried in the sinkhole.

"The figure that we hear over and over again in interviews is 4,000," said Wille, stressing the information was as yet impossible to verify.

HRW wants to see Iraq's government, which has an inter-ministerial team dedicated to dealing with mass graves, carry out an extensive operation to protect and excavate the site.

"We'd want to see that team going up as quickly as possible, marking off the site both to protect it and also to stop people going to a site that's contaminated," said Wille.

"After that comes the harder job, which is first collecting the surface remains... for use by forensic experts to start identification, and after that the much harder work of excavating the remains that are below."

But Hassani said he thought it would be impossible to excavate the many layers of the sinkhole.

"What should happen is that it should be covered over, and become a cemetery for Iraqi martyrs," he said.

AFP 2017

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Mass grave horror found beneath the dirt in Iraq - 9news.com.au

A senior military adviser to the Leader of Islamic Revolution said the stances adopted by certain countries against the Islamic Republic at the recent Munich Security Conference are rooted in their defeats in Iraq and Syria. Speaking to Tasnim News Agency on Saturday, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi denounced recent anti-Tehran remarks by the representatives of some countries in the confab and said they are angry over their defeats in Iraq and Syria. "The fact is that the proxy wars waged by the US, Zionists [Israelis], Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in Syria and Iraq have failed," he said. "The immature stances adopted by some countries in the Munich conference originated from their anger over the defeats." Safavi further highlighted Iran's successful strategy in countering regional terrorists, saying the Islamic Republic's success in restoring security to Syria and Iraq has infuriated those who created terror groups like the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group. The remarks came after Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Israel's Avigdor Lieberman delivered harsh speeches against Iran in the MSC in Germany. The Israeli official even sought to support Riyadh, alleging that Iran had an ultimate objective of undermining Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. In response, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said the Saudi and Israeli regimes are both attempting to "provoke the international atmosphere" against Iran to cover up their own defeats and failed policies in the region. Qasemi stressed that the recurring tone of Saudi and Israeli officials, whose regimes are collaborating in the suppression of people in the region, demonstrates "painful frustration and resentment". "It is a pity that the occupying regime of Israel has counted on the cooperation of an Islamic countrySaudi Arabiato pursue its anti-Iran policies," he said.

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Defeats in Iraq, Syria Behind Anti-Iran Stances - Financial Tribune

Iraqi Kurdish leaders are considering offering territory seized by their forces in the offensive to recapture Mosul from Isis as a bargaining chip in a new push for independence from Baghdad.

As Iraqi forces continue their advance towards key Isis-defended districts in west Mosul, attention is turning to what northern Iraq will look like once the jihadi group is routed. Ministers from the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) believe that one option might be offering to Baghdad land their peshmerga forces have recaptured from Isis in return for self-rule, the pinnacle of Kurdish ambition for decades.

Speaking from his office in the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Erbil, foreign minister Falah Mustafa said that, although the Mosul alliance of Iraqi and peshmerga troops was on course to quash Isis in Iraqs second city, the time had arrived for Kurdistan to move forward by itself.

Its important that the right to self-determination is put on the table we need to put an end to this unhealthy relationship [with Baghdad]. We are neither fully integrated into Iraq, nor are we fully independent and sovereign.

We need to sit down to discuss the future of Erbil and Baghdad, including independence. Now is the time to discuss a new formula for this relationship. What we have has failed.

Bolstering Kurdistans newfound impetus for self-rule is the conviction that the Trump administration might be willing to support Kurdish dreams of independence. Already President Masoud Barzani of the Kurdistan region has seriously discussed independence with Mike Pence, the US vice-president.

Mustafa said: The preliminary contacts we have had prior, during and after the US election are encouraging. We believe we have a good opportunity to further develop our ties. Soon there will be [more] contact with our leadership and the US leadership. Its all encouraging. We are optimistic.

His initiative comes amid calls for Sinjar, inhabited by Kurdish-speaking Yazidis, and the Nineveh Plains, a largely Christian area, to both eventually become autonomous regions along the lines of the KRG.

For the KRG itself, one potential pawn in its campaign to cut loose from Baghdad is the huge swathe of land peshmerga forces have liberated from the advance of Isis . Iraqi towns recaptured by Kurdish forces include Bashiqa, and scores of villages and thousands of square miles of territory including much of Kirkuk province, northern Diyala and Sinjar. In total, the Kurds have increased the land mass under their control by up to 40%.

Peshmerga military sources point out that such territory was won at the cost of Kurdish lives. One officer said that, in one assault alone on the former Isis stronghold of Bashiqa, 31 peshmerga fighters were killed. As of last week, 1,682 had died and 9,787 were injured during its gruelling 30-month war against Isis, an intensive campaign that has exacted a punishing toll on the regions fragile economy.

Karim Sinjari, the minister of the interior and acting minister of peshmerga affairs, said: The war costs a lot. The martyr families have to be taken care of, the wounded need to be treated.

Another issue will be claiming the spoils of the victory in Mosul itself. Although the peshmerga have agreed not to enter the city, Kurdish forces were instrumental in securing and holding large areas of territory around the northern metropolis before allowing the Iraqi army to complete the mission.

When asked what leverage Erbil was prepared to use in independence talks, Mustafa said that of course land was a factor to be considered. It is an important issue. Responsibility, territory, the oil issue, finances, the airspace all need to be discussed. We want to start this dialogue with Baghdad peacefully, recognising that we will always have a strategic relationship, he said.

Among most of the Kurdish norths 5.5 million population, severing ties with Iraq cannot come soon enough, with the sense that Iraqs central government no longer even pretends to care for Kurdish rights. Baghdad wants us to be subordinate, subjugated. We reject that. The deal with a federal Iraq has failed, said Mustafa.

He added that if Baghdad refused to recognise their arguments, they may stage a referendum to legitimise their campaign for self-rule. A previous unofficial referendum held in 2005 found that 99% were in favour out of the two million who turned out.

But it is the peshmergas military successes against Isis that ministers hope will provide timely influence in the quest for statehood. Donald Trump who has vowed to crush Isis has been impressed with the US-backed peshmergas triumphs against Isis; they have been credited with halting the Islamist militants 2014 surge across the country. The KRG points out that such success was achieved in spite of Baghdad, rather than because of its support.

In the two years we are fighting Daesh [Isis], all we got from Baghdad is some ammunition. They give almost nothing to the peshmerga, not their salaries, their costs, nothing, said Sinjari. But Sinjari also warned that, once Isis has been routed from Iraq, the dynamic that saw many Sunni Muslims initially welcome the group as liberators from the Shia-dominated forces of Baghdad might not easily be vanquished.

Daesh will not finish quickly. Their territory will be defeated, but here [pointing to his head] they will stay. We have to solve the reason why Daesh have come. If we dont, another will come. Al-Qaida finished, then Daesh came. Daesh finished, another comes.

Fifty-five miles west from Sinjaris office the frontlines in Mosul the latest reports reveal that Iraqi security forces are continuing to advance deeper into the city with attacks mounted against jihadi defences on several fronts. However, Sinjari warned that progress might slow down as Iraqi troops encroached upon the citys labyrinthine historic centre and the fight descended into a slog.

In the old city you cant use tanks or armoured vehicles, so itll be a fight from house to house. But Daesh have lost many of their fighters in the eastern side, thousands. Their strongest force has been killed, especially the foreign fighters.

The minister also warned of dirty tactics, with Islamists using some of the 750,000 civilians trapped in the densely populated city as human shields.

In the eastern side of the city cleared last month residents are starting to trickle back, although the KRG is still hosting 1.8 million internally displaced Iraqis and Syrian refugees from the regions upheaval and are calling for urgent humanitarian support from the international community.

Sinjari, describing a recent trip to a local hospital, said: In every bed they had four kids, three internally displaced people, and one local. You can see how much pressure the issue is having on our services.

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Kurds offer land for independence in struggle to reshape Iraq - The Guardian

A senior commander said Iraqi militarized police captured a neighborhood in western Mosul on Sunday morning amid clashes with Islamic State militants.

Maj. Gen. Haider al-Maturi of the Federal Police Commandos Division told The Associated Press that his troops entered the Tayaran neighborhood.

Al-Maturi said it is now "under their full control."

Al-Maturi said at least 10 suicide car bombs were deployed by ISIS militants. Nine of the car bombs were blown up before reaching their targets. The tenth killed two policemen and wounded five.

Al-Maturi also said his forces arrested two militants an Iraqi and a foreigner who speaks Russian.

Further west, Iraqi special forces captured the Mamun neighborhood by early Sunday afternoon, Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil of the special forces said. Fadhil said ISIS militants attacked the advancing troops with more than 15 suicide car bombs, but all were blown up before hitting the troops.

"The neighborhood is fully liberated," he said. "We are clearing it up and beefing up fortifications."

Up to 3,000 people fled from the Mamun neighborhood Sunday morning, according to Iraqi special forces Brig. Gen. Salam Hashed, who oversees a screening center south of Mosul. Hashed said just over 2,500 people fled the previous day.

According to the U.N. figures, about 750,000 civilians are believed to be trapped in their houses in western Mosul, one of several challenges expected to slow the advance of the Iraqi troops.

Another complication is western Mosul's old and narrow streets, which will force Iraqi soldiers to leave the relative safety of their armored vehicles.

Western Mosul is the last significant urban area IS holds in Iraq. The city is split roughly in half by the Tigris River.

Mosul fell to ISIS in the summer of 2014, along with large swaths of northern and western Iraq.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Iraq: Officials recapture new neighborhood in Mosul - Fox News