MOSUL: Militants from the Islamic State group that controls large parts of Iraq have blown up a Shiite shrine in the city of Mosul, an official and witnesses said Saturday.

IS men destroyed the Nabi Shiyt (Prophet Seth) shrine in Mosul, the de facto Iraqi capital of the “caliphate” proclaimed last month by Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

“IS militants stopped people from coming close, set explosives in and around the shrine and then detonated them as a crowd looked on,” one resident who witnessed the demolition told AFP.

Seth is revered in Christianity, Islam and Judaism as the third son of Adam and Eve. Sami Al-Massoudi, the deputy head of the Shiite endowment agency overseeing holy sites, confirmed that militants blew up the Nabi Shiyt shrine and added that they took some of the artefacts to an unknown location.

“These people follow this impossible religious doctrine according to which they must destroy or kill anything or anybody deviating from their views,” he said. “That simply has nothing to do with Islam.”

The latest destruction comes a day after IS militants completely leveled the reputed tomb of Jonah (Nabi Yunus) in Mosul, sparking an outcry among religious officials.

Meanwhile, more and more Syrian rebels are defecting to join the Islamic State insurgency, said UN human rights investigators on Friday, in what they described as a “Syrian-ization” of the Al-Qaeda offshoot.

Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite cleric urged political leaders on Friday to refrain from clinging to their posts — an apparent reference to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who has defied demands that he step aside.