'IS' executed thousands since Mosul takeover

The latest figure applies only to the region around Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, which was seized by IS in June 2014.

"(IS) assassinated in cold blood ... 2,070 residents of Nineveh for ... not cooperating with them," Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi said in a video posted on the ministry's website on Friday.

The group compiled the list with the 2,070 names and publicly displayed parts of it. IS also requested local medical officials in Mosul to issue death certificates.

Most of the executions happened during the past six months, according to sources in the Mosul morgue cited by the news agency Reuters.

The bodies of Iraqi security forces and journalists were only delivered to the morgue on Friday, according to the same sources. Other citizens, executed for common crimes like theft, had already been buried.

The list includes local officials, lawyers, journalists, doctors and rights activists.

They were accused by IS of "promoting ideas that distort Islam," a source in the department of forensic medicine told the news agency AFP.

'Crime of genocide'

IS has boasted of its execution campaign against enemy combatants and people suspected of working against them inside occupied territories. The terror group conducted several public killings, including decapitation, firing squad, stoning and, in at least one case, pushing the accused off a high building.

Parliament Speaker Saleem al-Jabouri condemned the reported executions on Facebook as "a historical crime of genocide".

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the killings came as a reaction to Islamic State's losses to pro-government forces in Anbar province.

dj/bw (Reuters, AFP)