Isis beheads 10 Daesh fighters for fleeing battlefield in Mosul

The Islamic State (Isis) has publicly beheaded at least 10 of its fighters for fleeing the battlefield. The Sharia Court of Mosul found the fighters guilty of "high treason" as they had fled their post when attacked by Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq's north-western city of Mosul.

"The militants were found guilty of evacuating a post at the battlefront, where clashes took place between them and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces," media activist Abdullah al-Mallah told ARA News. "The Sharia Court of Mosul decided to behead them in front of hundreds of Isis [IS] members in order to prevent others from taking such a move without the permission of their military leadership," Abdullah added.

Among the beheaded IS fighters six were Syrian nationals and the rest Western jihadists, a source in Baa'j district told the news agency. Baa'j district, which lies west of the city of Mosul, is where the beheadings were carried out in a public square on 20 December.

This is not the first time the IS has carried out public executions of its own fighters. Last month, the terror group executed 73 fighters after they fled from Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Sinjar district in northern Iraq. According to Kurdish official Saeed Mamozini, the IS fighters were executed by a firing squad.

Meanwhile, the IS has released a video which shows the beheading of a man claimed to be a Pakistani soldier. The video also shows an IS suicide bomber drive an explosives-laden truck into a checkpost in Afghanistan.