Fighting IS: Iraq PM orders halt to shelling of civilian areas

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Saturday that he has ordered security forces to stop shelling populated areas in all cities that are under the control of militant groups.

"I have issued an order two days ago to stop shelling all cities and populated areas even those under the control of the militants, because we don't want more casualties among innocent people," Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of Iraqi forces, said at a conference for displaced people in Iraq's capital Baghdad.

However, Abadi pledged to continue military operations against the Islamic State (IS) Sunni extremist group, Xinhua reported.

"We will not stop chasing them, and we know that they use civilians as human shields, but I won't hesitate for a moment in protecting the civilians," Abadi said.

UN envoy to Iraq Necholay Mladenov, who attended the conference, welcomed Abadi's move to protect civilians.

Earlier in the month, UN agencies in Iraq said that since January 2014 up to 1.8 million people have been displaced, nearly half of them children, in the ongoing violence across the country.

More than 895 people were killed and some 2,625 others wounded in the militants-seized city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad. Most of the casualties were civilians, a medical source told Xinhua, citing the data of the city's main hospital.

The security situation in Iraq began to drastically deteriorate from June 10 when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and hundreds of IS militants.