The United Nations now estimates the number of displaced residents of Mosul has topped 125,000 people. The restart of government operations just before the new year created a surge in the number of people trying to flee the city.

The Pentagon announced that the number of Coalition advisers in Iraq was doubled to 450 personnel. The United States has 4,935 servicemembers currently stationed in Iraq.

A new mass grass at Camp Speicher has yielded 80 victims from the 2014 massacre.

At least 155 were killed and 21 more wounded:

In Mosul, car bombs killed 18 people, including 11 civilians; 13 civilians were also wounded. A police commander was killed in combat in the Mithaq neighborhood. Forty militants were killed in southwestern operations. To the north, 10 militants were killed. At least four militants were killed in the east. Clashes left three militants dead, including a media official, in Karama.

Four Iraqi officers died in a helicopter crash near Baiji.

A bomb in Madaen killed one person and wounded five more.

In Baghdad, mortars killed one person and wounded three more.

In Najaf, one person was shot to death. A tanker explosion killed another.

Fifty militants were killed in operations between Baiji and Mosul.

An airstrike in the Rashad area left 20 militants dead.

A sharia official was killed in an explosion in the Hamrin region.

Source: original.antiwar.com