IS fighter 'shot dead own mother in public execution'

An Islamic State fighter executed his own mother in public after she was accused of apostasy for asking him to leave the group, monitoring groups said on Friday. 

The incident happened on Thursday in Raqqa, IS's self-declared capital, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently activist group named the woman as 45-year-old Leena al-Qasem and posted a photograph on Twitter of a man it said was Ali Saqr, her 20-year-old son.

According to the observatory, Qasem was shot by Saqr in front of hundreds of people outside a post office building where she worked.

It said she had sought to persuade him to quit IS and leave Raqqa and told him that the US-led coalition currently carrying out air strikes in IS-held territory in Syria and Iraq would kill all members of the group.

Saqr subsequently reported his mother to IS authorities, who arrested her and charged her with apostasy, the observatory said.

Life in Raqqa has been transformed since IS took over in January 2014, with the population falling from a million to 400,000, with the group's stranglehold making it hard to confirm many details of life in the city. 

Punishment for those who do not observe its strict rules has become an everyday reality for residents. 

Activists have been either executed or managed to escape to Turkey - by no means an easy feat considering that IS bans residents from leaving.