Islamic State terrorists murder Iraqi police officer

An Iraqi police officer was murdered about two weeks after the Islamic State jihadist group kidnapped him, officials say.

The militant group had released photos purporting to show the decapitated body of Colonel Yasser al-Jourani, whom they had seized while he was hunting with friends in Iraq’s Hamrin region earlier this month.

One of his hunting companions was found shot dead, while a second who had been tortured later died of his wounds, a security source tells AFP.

IS overran large swaths of northern and western Iraq in a lighting offensive in 2014 before eventually succumbing to counter-attacks by government forces backed by a US-led coalition in 2017. Today, IS maintains a largely clandestine presence in Iraq and Syria and conducts a sustained insurgency on both sides of the border, according to a United Nations report published early this year.