Watchdog group: ISIS executes Mosul journalist

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Islamic State has executed a Mosul journalist who refused to join the extremist group, the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate reported.

Akram Suleiman, head of Mosul branch of the syndicate, told Rudaw the jihadists executed Firas al-Bahri, a veteran TV journalist, on Tuesday. In other reports, Bahri was said to have been held captive for nearly three weeks before his death. 

"They asked him to do Bai’at [an Islamic practice of pledging allegiance] with Daesh, but he refused to do so. Finally, they killed him today,” said the source, using Arabic acronym for ISIS.

Suleiman claimed Bahri was the seventh journalists from the city of Mosul to have been executed by the group.

“There are 10 other journalists who are held captive by Daesh in an unknown place,” he added.

According to a report in Iraqi Tradelink News Agency, Bahri was an engineer at Nineveh Al-Ghad TV station for more than a year before ISIS stormed the city. The report said he worked for five previous years for Mosul TV. 

Since ISIS toppled Mosul in June, reports have emerged of kidnappings and executions of local as well as foreign journalists in Iraq’s second-largest city

The group issued a series of strict guidelines to journalists in early October stating that they must declare allegiance to the Islamic State and obtain approval for all reports.