Islamic State group policemen stand guard in front of a police station in Nineveh province, Iraq.

The head of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has ordered the execution of 56 members of the militant group following a defeat in northern Iraq, a Kurdish official told Al Arabiya News Channel.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took the decision after the Islamist militants’ defeat in Kober, south of Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, said Saeed Mamozini, an official in the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP).

The media official said the “executions took place in the Al-Namrood, east Mosul,” noting that the “battles between ISIS and the Peshmerga south of Erbil led to the killing of 300 members of the group and approximately 150 others.”

The U.S.-led coalition has since late 2014 been launching air strikes against the militant group, which seized large swathes of territory in Iraq in June. The Iraqi army and Kurdish fighters have also been battling ISIS as part of the U.S.-led initiative.

ISIS seeks an “Islamic caliphate” to be headed by Baghdadi in territory spanning different Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq and Syria. The group’s headquarters is in the Syrian city of Raqqa.

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