Islamic State execute local journalist in Iraq's Mosul

A journalist has been executed by the Islamic State group in Iraq, according to local media reports on Monday.

“ISIS executed a journalist who had worked for the Mosuliah TV in Mosul,” a source told the Kurdish Rudaw media network, using an alternative acronym for IS.

The victim was named as Ala Mazn Abdullah, who worked at Mosuliah TV between 2007 and 2008. He was killed at a military base in south Mosul, the IS stronghold in Iraq, according to Rudaw.

Abdullah was arrested in February and put on trial in an IS court for “helping to rescue journalists from ISIS who had then fled to the Kurdistan Region”.

He was reportedly sentenced to death after refusing to give up information on the journalists who had escaped IS territory.

IS has gained international notoriety for having executed a number of foreign journalists, including US citizens James Foley and Steven Sotloff as well as British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.

Local media workers have continued to be targeted by IS but received little international attention. In October last year Raad al-Azzawi was executed after he refused to work with the group and in the same month Kurdish journalist Muhannad Akidi was shot in the head by IS militants in south Mosul.

Rudaw said on Monday that five journalists were executed by IS in November last year.

“Brothers Ahmed and Aitar Rafi, Mohandis Yasir, Yasir Alqaisi and Modhas Adari were executed in the city’s southeastern Sumar district of Mosul […] on charges of spying for Iraqi security forces,” the website reported.