IS executes 15 Iraqi police officers, kidnaps four students

The kidnapped journalism students were accused of collaborating with the foreign press in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul

The Islamic State radical group on Sunday executed 15 Iraqi police officers and kidnapped four journalism students accused of collaborating with the foreign press in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Mohammed al-Bayati, the head of security in the Iraqi province of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, said that the incidents were part of a campaign of arrests and executions being carried out by the IS against the security services and public officials.

The 15 officers were killed by rifle fire on a square in Mosul in front of the city hall before a crowd of passersby with the aim, Al-Bayati said, of "intimidating" local residents.

Later, their bodies were delivered to the city morgue, the official said, adding that the IS fighters are carrying out mass arrests of election commission employees and members of the security forces, who had declared their fidelity to the IS.

Meanwhile, four University of Mosul journalism students were arrested on Sunday morning in different districts around the city and accused of publishing images of the "land of the Caliphate", thus cooperating with the international press, a member of the Iraqi journalists union, Sufian al-Mashhandani, said.

The images of Mosul were allegedly published on the Facebook pages of the arrested students.

After their arrests, the students were transferred to an IS prison located in the southeastern part of the city to be questioned by a tribunal of jihadis about their alleged collaboration with the foreign media.

Since the jihadis occupied Mosul on June 10, 2014, they have murdered hundreds of people for opposing the extremist ideology of the IS, including human rights activists, physicians, journalists, soldiers and policemen.

In late June 2014, the IS declared an Islamic caliphate in the territories it controls in Syria and Iraq.