By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - Islamist fighters have carried out atrocities on "an unimaginable scale" in months of fighting with Iraqi forces, who have also killed detainees and shelled civilian areas, a U.N. official said on Monday.
There is "strong evidence" Islamic State and allied groups have carried out targeted killings, forced conversions, sexual abuse and torture in Iraq, U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri said, opening an emergency debate on the conflict in Geneva.
Iraq's human rights minister, Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani, told the session that Islamic State militants, "oozing with barbarity", threatened his country and the world, but did not immediately respond to allegations against state troops.
Islamic State has grabbed large areas of Iraq and neighboring Syria, declaring a cross-border caliphate and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. At least 1,420 people were killed in Iraq in August alone, U.N. figures showed on Monday.
The one-day U.N. Human Rights Council session, called by Iraq with the support of allies including the United States, is expected to agree to Baghdad's request to send a team of U.N. experts to investigate crimes committed in the conflict.
"The reports we have received reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale," Pansieri told the Council, on its first meeting about the latest surge in violence. She later told Reuters she was referring to Islamic State.
Iraqi government forces, police and allied militia had also committed acts that may amount to war crimes, she said.
