"The Islamic State (IS) armed group is carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in northern Iraq, targeting religious and ethnic minorites with mass killings and abductions, Amnesty International says.

In a report released on Tuesday, the global rights body said systematic violence in Iraq had increased to a historic scale.

"The massacres and abductions being carried out by the Islamic State provide harrowing new evidence that a wave of ethnic cleansing against minorities is sweeping across northern Iraq," said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International's Senior Crisis Response Adviser currently in northern in Iraq."

Al Jazeera