DHAKA: Islamic State’s self-declared police force in western Syria decapitated four men after accusing them of blasphemy.

A rights group monitoring the Syrian conflict said on Saturday, reports The Straits Times.

The men were beheaded in the countryside east of the city of Homs by the militant group’s ‘Islamic Police’, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Observatory, which monitors the conflict using sources on the ground, reported a similar killing on Tuesday, when Islamic State beheaded a man in a town square in the north of the country.

Residents and activists say Islamic State has beheaded and stoned to death many people in areas it controls in Syria and Iraq for actions they see as violating their reading of Islamic law, such as adultery, homosexuality, stealing and blasphemy.

BDST: 1736 HRS, DEC 13, 2014