HRW accuses ISIL of carrying out mass executions in Iraq's Tikrit

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the rebel Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) insurgents of executing between 160 and 190 men in at least two locations in and around Tikrit - the home town of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein - between June 11 and June 14.

In a report appearing on its web site, the HRW said that its accusation is based on photographs and satellite imagery.

ISIL, radical Islamists who want to re-create a mediaeval-style caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria, has stormed largely unopposed across much of northern Iraq, taking cities, including Mosul and Tikrit, seizing border posts with Syria and advancing to within some 100km of the capital Baghdad.

News24 quoted the HRW, as saying that the death toll could be much higher. It also said that locating the bodies of those executed would be difficult, as access to the area where they had reportedly taken place is restricted.

Human Rights Watch emergencies director Peter Bouckaert said in a statement that he believed that a horrible war crime had taken place that needs further investigation.

The United Nations said on Tuesday that at least 1,000 people, mainly civilians, had been killed and roughly the same number injured in fighting and other violence in Iraq in June as Isil swept through the north.