The ISIS group has executed 16 men in Deir Ezzor and one more in Raqa, to send a message to all their opponents after recent assassinations of 12 Syrian, Iraqi and Algerian terrorists, said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

“The men were accused of fighting ISIS,” Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that only one of them had been proven to be linked to the assassinations.

He added: “ISIS is sending a message to all people living under its control, to say: ‘This is what will happen to any opponent.’”

The group emerged in Syria’s war in 2013 and in June declared a “caliphate” in areas under its control straddling Syria and Iraq.

It has committed some of the war’s worst abuses, carrying out near-daily executions in areas in its grip.

Most of Raqa and Deir Ezzor provinces are ISIS-controlled. Among those executed in the past two days in oil-rich Deir Ezzor were five members of the Shaitat tribe, which launched a local rebellion last year against ISIS.

The terrorists quelled the revolt, killing more than 900 tribe members in response.

Meanwhile, in Iraq authorities say a series of bombings and mortar attacks have killed nine people in the capital, Baghdad. Police officials say the first attack took place Friday around noon when mortar shells landed on houses in Baghdad’s northwest district of Shula, killing four people and wounding 13 others.

Later on, a bomb blast on a commercial street killed three people and wounded 11 others in Baghdad’s northeastern suburb of Husseiniya.

Police officials said a bomb also exploded near a line of automobile spare part shops in western Baghdad, killing two people and wounding nine others.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures from all attacks. Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.