Islamic State fighters have kidnapped around 170 men in northern Iraq for burning the militant group's flags.
An Iraqi intelligence officer told AP on January 3 that the men were taken from the villages of Al-Shajara and Gharib in Kirkuk Province, after two IS flags were burned in the area.
The officer said the men were taken in 30 vehicles to the nearby town of Hawijah.
It is not the first time IS has turned to mass detentions to suppress resistance in the swaths of territory in Iraq that it has seized since June.
It seized 50 people in Kirkuk after residents destroyed one of their fortifications and flag in September, and 20 more the following week for allegedly forming a resistance group.
The group has also executed thousands of people in in Iraq and Syria.
