IS kills cameraman in Iraq's Mosul

Islamic State (IS) militants killed an Iraqi cameraman in Mosul, the capital city of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, a provincial police source said on Monday.

Qahttan Salaman, who worked for a local television station, was seized on Friday by IS militants at his house in east part of the city, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Salaman was held by the extremist militants outside Mosul, and was shot dead later, the source said.

The local TV channel, Sama al-Mosul, was owned by former governor of Nineveh province Atheel al-Nujaifi, who was dismissed by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi after IS militants seized Mosul in June 2014, and stopped its activities after the fall of city.

The source didn't say what was behind the killing, but the Journalistic Freedom Observatory, an Iraqi media watchdog, said Salaman was accused of collaboration with Iraqi security forces, in addition to filing reports against critical of IS propaganda.

Many reporters have been killed or left the city for fear of harsh rule of the extremist militants since last summer, when the IS took control of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.

Iraq has been witnessing some of the worst violence in years. Terrorism and violence have left at least 12,282 civilians dead and 23,126 others injured in 2014, making it the deadliest year since the flareup of sectarian violence in 2006-2007, according to a recent United Nations report.

Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups such as the IS group on the United States, which invaded Iraq in March 2003 under the pretext of seeking to destroy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the country. The war led to the ouster and eventual execution of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, but no WMD was found. Endit