Senior Islamic State (Isis) commanders executed seven of their own men by boiling them alive in water, say reports. The jihadists were said to have fled the battlefield in al-Shirqat in the Salahuddin province on Monday 4 June before being apprehended.

The jihadists are fighting battles with the Iraqi army in the province, which lies north of Baghdad, but is just 60 miles south of the IS-stronghold of Mosul. The IS (Daesh) fighters are believed to have been killed by being thrown into a giant cauldron of boiling water after their hands and feet were bound.

The source was quoted by the Daily Star who said the report emerged via Arabic-language media. "ISIL/Daesh executed seven of its militants who had fled Sharqat battlefield in Salahuddin by putting them in containers with boiling water," the source said.

The report is the latest in a long line of under-sourced and unattributed reports of dramatic killings by IS. Each of the reports cite unnamed sources and cannot be independently verified by IBTimes UK.

IS are renowned for the brutal punishments meted out on the battlefield and in ordinary life in front of thousands of civilians. Only last month reports emerged that the extremists executed 19 of their soldiers who fled battles against security forces in al-Shuhada and al-Nassaf in Central Fallujah.

In May, in perhaps the most brutal method of murder to emerge from the self-proclaimed caliphate, IS reportedly executed 25 alleged spies by lowering them into a huge tub of nitric acid, until their 'organs dissolved'. The horrific executions were said to have taken place in Mosul, in northern Iraq.

Then in June IS released an execution video which purportedly showed five journalists being brutally murdered in Syria. The footage shows two of the five journalists blown up with explosives packed into their cameras and laptops; both are chained to a metal railing with cameras around their necks, which are later detonated.