(Tasnim) -- The civilians from al-Zanjili neighborhood in western Mosul were executed after they were caught attempting to escape, an Iraqi military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Spain’s Efe news.

He added the terrorists had hanged the bodies of the victims from electricity poles after declaring them apostates for trying to leave "the land of the caliphate".

The source added that the civilians had also been accused of providing information to Iraqi security forces.

Iraqi government forces are struggling to expel Daesh terrorists from the western part of Mosul, where some neighborhoods are still under the control of the militants.

Iraq has been facing the growing threat of terrorism, mainly posed by Daesh.

Daesh militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the summer of 2014, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.

However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, blunted the edge of Daesh offensive and later made the terror group withdraw from much of the territories it had occupied.