ISIS militants claimed the three were executed in a northern city of Iraq

Chilling images show the men bent over at public site awaiting their death

Kneeling before him are men accused of blasphemy and homosexuality

Chilling new images have emerged of three men accused of homosexuality and blasphemy being forced to their knees and publicly beheaded by a sword-wielding Islamic State executioner.

Photographs of the barbaric murders show the blindfolded men kneeling in the centre of what appears to be a traffic roundabout with a crowd of people looking on as a masked executioner stands by with a long, rusty blade.

After an elderly man uses a microphone to read to the crowd from his notes, the executioner then steps forward with the blade poised above the men's heads in the unnamed city in northern Iraq.

The executioner stands with the sword poised above the man's head as a large crowd gathers to watch

The beheading appears to take place at a traffic roundabout in northern Iraq's Nineveh province

One of the blindfolded victims kneels with his head forward immediately prior to the beheading. Messages accompanying the images claimed two men were accused of homosexuality and a third of blasphemy

An elderly man reads to the crowd from his notes in the moments leading up to the three men's deaths

Accompanying captions said the trio were then beheaded - two for engaging in homosexual acts and the third for alleged blasphemy - but there were no images released of the actual beheading.

The jihadist group, which controls swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has carried out hundreds of barbaric executions as it has imposed its brutal version of Islamic law, many of which are photographed or videotaped.

The photos were said to have been taken in Nineveh province - the first to fall to a sweeping IS-led offensive last June - but the exact location was not specified.

Many young men have also been thrown from the roofs of buildings throughout ISIS-controlled areas after being accused of engaging in homosexual acts.

The stomach-churning photographs usually show a blindfolded victim being dragged to the top of a building by black-masked militants.

As crowds gather at street level the men are thrown to their death, while jihadis and members of the public use mobile phones to film the gruesome murders.

Iraqi troops and militia are battling to push the jihadists back with support from a US-led coalition and Iran.

But retaking Nineveh and its capital Mosul poses a major challenge for Baghdad's forces, as the militants have had more than nine months to dig in.

Iraqi forces launched a huge operation last week aimed at retaking the city of Tikrit that, if successful, would serve as a stepping stone towards Mosul.

A crowd gathers around the outskirts of the traffic roundabout to view the bloody spectacle

Images of the bloodthirsty group's latest execution come amid claims a former member of ISIS claimed he witnessed the British graduate dubbed Jihadi John behead a Japanese hostage.

The man, named only as Saleh, said the masked militant who appears in several beheading videos was a senior figure in the extremist organisation responsible for murdering foreign captives.

Jihadi John, who was recently unmasked as 26-year-old Londoner Mohammed Emwazi, was last seen in a video posted online which appeared to show Japanese hostage Kenji Goto lying dead.