A full siege is developing in Mosul as poor families struggle to feed themselves after prices rose sharply following the US-backed offensive on the Islamic State-held city in northern Iraq, humanitarian workers said on Tuesday.

Iraqi special forces battling to clear Islamic State from eastern Mosul have killed nearly 1,000 militants but fighting has slowed as troops face a mobile enemy hidden among thousands of civilians in the city, a top commander said.

Iraq's parliament approved a law on Saturday that will transform Popular Mobilization forces, a mostly Iranian-backed coalition of Shi'ite militias that played a role in fighting Islamic State, into a legal and separate military corps.

The false news reported by Saudi Asharq Al-awsat newspaper last Sunday was a deliberate fabrication intended to incite further sectarian tension in region,

The United States strongly condemned the “terrorist attack” adopted by ISIS in the city of Hilla, Iraq, by a booby-trapped vehicle detonated in the midst of Shiite pilgrims on their way back from Karbala, killing at least 70 people, most of them Iranians.

The Iran-backed popular mobilization in Iraq said that it arrived on Wednesday to the Kurdish Peshmerga defense lines west of Mosul, adding that this step means encircling the entire city that is under the control of ISIS, and the neighboring city of Tal Afar.

Millions of Shiite Muslims, crying and beating their chests in mourning, streamed through a shrine in the Iraqi city of Karbala Monday under heavy protection from the security forces, AFP reported.

BBC said that a car bomb targeted Shia returning from the Arbaeen pilgrimage at a checkpoint near Hilla, south of Baghdad.

Iraqi Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Ahmad Jamal, said that his country launched measures towards initiating a lawsuit in British courts against the Saudi London-based “Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper”.

Iraqi Shiite militias were massing troops on Monday to cut remaining supply routes to Mosul, Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq, closing in on the road that links the Syrian and Iraqi parts of its self-declared “Caliphate”, Reuters reported.

Convoys of military vehicles loaded with Shi'ite paramilitary fighters hurtled across desert terrain in northwestern Iraq towards the Islamic State-held city of Tal Afar, chanting religious slogans and covering their faces to keep out the dust, Reuters reported.

The Bahraini Ambassador in Iraq, Salah al-Maliki, said that the Bahraini Embassy and Consulate in Najaf are closely following up the status of Arbaeen Imam Hussein commemoration in Karbala.

The Iraqi Embassy in Bahrain told al-Wasat newspaper that it issued more than 80 thousand visas for Bahrainis visiting its country on the occasion of Arbaeen Imam Hussein (PBU), marked Monday (November 21, 2016).

It only takes a split second for the expression on the Iraqi soldier's face to transform from relaxed contentment to absolute terror. "Car bomb!"

Iraqi special forces said they pushed deeper into Mosul on Friday despite heavy resistance from Islamic State militants using civilians as cover, and were holding half a dozen city neighborhoods seized in the last 10 days.

Iraqi security forces advancing north along the Tigris river towards Mosul reached the last major town before the city on Friday, a police commander said.

The Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service entered on Tuesday the state television station in Mosul, capturing the first important building in the Islamic State-held city since the start of the offensive about two weeks ago, a commander of the elite unit said.

: Iraqi federal policemen stood over the corpse of an Islamic State suicide bomber covered by a curtain. The chain attached to his ankle was tied to a car that had dragged him through streets, they said, that were once part of a self-proclaimed jihadist caliphate.

The Iraqi Hashid Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces, said it started on Saturday it's attack on ISIS headquarters in West Mosul to support the campaign to restore the city control from ISIS.

An Iraqi lawmaker has called on her government to investigate a suspected air strike at a Shi'ite mosque during fighting in nearby Kirkuk last week, saying U.S.-led forces could have been involved - a suggestion dismissed by the coalition.