ISIS reportedly executes Yazidi prisoners

The militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is reported to have carried out another attack on members of a religious minority.

• Yazidis freed from Mount Sinjar after being trapped
• ISIS admits enslaving Yazidi women
• Iraq's Yazidi minority has long been singled out for hatred

Yazidi legislators are looking into reports the extremists killed as many as 300 Yazidi prisoners on Friday near Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, which is under ISIS control.

The Yazidis form a tiny religious community that was directly in the path of the ISIS fighters as they swept through northern Iraq to take Mosul last year. Hundreds are believed to have been taken captive and the women sold to fighters.

• ISIS in Iraq: Captive Yazidi women and girls faced brutal sexual violence

The alleged killings took place at a prison camp near the town of Tal Afar, some 150 kilometres east of the Syrian border, legislator Mahma Khalil said. He said he believes some 1,400 other Yazidis are still held in the camp.

Iraq's non-governmental Human Rights Commission has put the figure of the executed Yazidis at around 70.

In another development, ISIS has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack late Saturday in the heart of Baghdad that killed at least 19 people, saying it was targeting a Shia militia.

Militants say the bombing was in retaliation for an uptick in fighting in Iraq's western Anbar province.