The Islamic State jihadist group put to death scores of prisoners in a mass execution in the Iraqi northwestern city of Mosul on Sunday, according to a report from the region.
"At least 75 prisoners were executed by IS in the Mosul Central Prison,” local media activist Abdullah al-Malla told the ARA News website, citing an IS official.
Most of the victims were young Iraqi men who had been recently arrested by IS militants in Mosul and other parts of the surrounding Nineveh province and charged with treason, ARA News said, citing an 'informed source'.
The executed civilians included at least 25 media activists, the news site reported.
ARA News cited an Iraqi security officer Zanoun Sabaawi as saying that IS has threatened all journalists and media activists that they will be executed if they report on local developments in areas held by the group.
A long-awaited ground campaign by Iraqi troops alongside Shiite militiamen, Sunni Arab tribesmen, Kurdish fighters and US special forces is expected to being "within weeks" to recapture Mosul from IS, according to western officials.
The largely Sunni city of Mosul is IS's main bastion Iraq and the 'capital' of its self-styled Caliphate, which extends across swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.
IS overran Mosul in June 2014 during a lightening sweep across the country's north and west. Since then thousands of people have been arrested, tortured and executed at the hands of IS. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, most of whom have headed to Iraqi Kurdistan.
